Life in THE COLLAR

   

 

   I stink. I'm not putting myself down, but I really stink. I haven't taken a shower since Wednesday, July 3rd. Then I went shopping and sweated. It was near the end of the record heat wave. I sweated the next day too, though I had to turn the oven on and keep it that way a few hours to cook some killer (ask Christine Craft, she'll tell you killer is the right word) ribs. I have run out of clothes to sleep in because it has been so hot, I haven't left my apartment to do laundry. The laundry room isn't that far from my apartment, but I know I can't take a shower every day. I am in a tracheotomy collar and it takes a full day for the pads to dry after washing them. I only have 2 sets of pads. So the best I could do is take a shower every other day, but why? I've no place to go. I'm not allowed to drive and that's driving me up the wall. The girls run out of their cat food in 2 days. While Mowgli will be just fine on the dry food, Ming doesn't have any teeth. I have put water in the dry food for her but she won't eat it. She will eat the dry food between the two feedings of canned food a day-they split a can of food in the morning and at night, though I think Ming eats most of it. When she eats the dry food, she drops most of it out of her mouth, but will not eat it unless it's in the bowl. Weird cat. In any case, when she runs out of canned food, I'm going to hear about it. I already hear about it when it's feeding time and she doesn't have her bowl full. There is one flavor she doesn't like-the Salmon flavor-and leaves some of it in her bowl. I tell her I won't open a new can until she eats what's in there. I point to the bowl that has food in it. I will go into the living room and within a few minutes will hear her metal I.D. tags banging against the ceramic bowl. About an hour later, I will put fresh (canned) food in her bowl and she's a happy cat. I know she's happy because she purrs when she eats.

     

     But back to me. I stink. In the past year since I have been disabled, I haven't been too physical. You know the old saying, "if you don't use it, you lose it"? Since I haven't been up every morning to go to work, I have become lazy. Add in severe arthritis in my knees (really, the last orthopedist I saw took one look at my right knee MRI and said, 'how do you even walk? You have no cartilage there') and you have a middle aged fat chick who is not able to do much. Since my neck operation, where they shaved three discs, opened up the area around my spinal cord and fused two things, I am not allowed to lift more than ten pounds. But I have a life that needs living and I got tired of the big bag of garbage sitting in the middle of my small kitchen, so I took that and the garbage in the can, out about an hour ago. That just about did me in. I was going to shave my legs and take a shower, but I am beat after taking out the trash. I need to shave my legs because when I do laundry later today - I need to because all of the t-shirts I have been wearing are all dirty and stinky - I will be wearing shorts. And while most people could care less, I can hear my dearly departed mother's voice in my head, 'you want to go outside like that? You want people to think you're gay? Or French? Geez, why bother to shower at all!' Besides, I like the feel of newly shaved legs against my 600 thread count sheets. Which I also need to launder. I have about eight sets of sheets and they are all dirty. When I say dirty, that's what I mean. Like my body of late, I wait until my sheets stink before I change them. It's not that I don't like clean sheets, it's just that it takes so much out of me to change them.

    

     So I stink. Here's a funny thing: when they were releasing me from the hospital, they were showing my sister and I how to change the pads in the neck brace, actually COLLAR from Hell, and suggested that I wear tops that are open wide at the top. I, of course, came in a tie-dye t-shirt that was kind of tight around the collar, We got the shirt on over the brace and then the collar over that. I stayed that way a few days until I took a shower and put a regular nightgown with a big opening at the top. The pads rubbed against my skin and irritated them so bad, I have been wearing big old t-shirts to soften the blow. What I wasn't supposed to wear, has actually helped me. I found that ironic.

 

     I know I stink and I am tired of stinking. I have nowhere to go, so I will now change out collars, shave my legs and take a shower. Because I am tired of stinking.