To My Chronic Cat, Who’s Incurable. Just Like Me

Juno.

Last night I slid into bed next to you.

I formed my own blankets around the perimeter of your body so my covers wouldn’t be too heavy on top of you.

I slid a sheet over you and up to your neck and placed a stuffed sloth on your other side, so you’d feel safe, warm, and cocooned in love.

You were in the middle of the bed, stretched out from the tips of your furry Maine Coon paws to the fluffiest end of your tail, with your confused, exhausted face trying to find an acceptable semblance of peace and comfort within the echoey plastic orb of the protective cone around your neck.

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Juno the #SpondyCat. ©2018, property of BeingCharis

Your dissent collar, if we wanted to be funny. Continue reading To My Chronic Cat, Who’s Incurable. Just Like Me

The Doctor Will See You Now

It’s the season of dropping things, hips and elbows knocking door frames, “Will this flare ever end?” weeks, buckling knees on flat ground, brain fog competing with memories of the years when I felt younger than my age.

It’s the season of “But you don’t look sick, you look Great!” and “Have you tried yoga?”

It’s the season when, as soon as the door latches shut, the safety of our homes becomes the hell of letting our guards down, removing the mask. Our yoga is the inching off the bed on our bellies, gripping the prescription bottle to suck down a pill and doze for 30 minutes in half-inchworm-half-human-pose before grasping our walker to pee in the middle of the night with shuffle-steps amid stifling stiffness and the pain of partially fused joints that used to swim in the joint juice of cartilage. Chronic yoga.

“Yes, I already do yoga. Maybe I’ll show you sometime.” Continue reading The Doctor Will See You Now