More Change

As I move further into this illness, as I get closer to the end of it all, I become more change resistant. I find myself not wanting anything different, anything new, or at least unexpected. It's fairly simple; there's a lot going on inside of me, a lot going on with my body. I don't need a lot going on outside of me, a lot going on in my life. I need stability and safety, not drama and change.

But I'm not necessarily right about this. While changes in my body are inevitable and inevitably bad, changes in my life don't have to be frightening. I just need time to get used to the idea.

My condom catheters arrived on Wednesday; that's right, Wednesday. I put them in the corner at the end of my dresser and left them there. I didn't touch them on Wednesday, nor on Thursday. I put the bag in the corner and continued to live with the mess of my daily life. We've seen this happen before, where a new thing is injected into my life and it takes a while for me to get up the courage to use it.

I finally tried, unsuccessfully, putting one of these things on last night. I failed miserably. You would think this would be a simple thing for me, but remember, this is not your typical prophylactic. It apparently takes some skill and practice to properly enclothe one's male member, aka penis, in one of these things. Today the bag remains in the corner; I will have to try again.

Then there was this morning, a new HCA arrived, with the supervisor. Michael, my regular HCA, has gone home to Nigeria for a couple of months, back to see his Mom and other family members. So in his stead, the agency and I have to train a new Home Care Aide. We don't have to teach her how to do her job in general; it's more about the specifics of caring for me.

This meant going through my whole routine this morning while explaining at each step of the way the reason and purpose for something. I find that if the HCA's know why they are doing something, they tend to be more diligent in doing it. It is another change, another day of finding dishes in the wrong place, another day of directing exercises.

It's probably the toughest thing to deal with these days, the instability of my life. There is very little consistency in things, while what I need most of all is that consistency. I need to feel safe, to feel cared for. I need to feel like I can trust my world to change as little as possible, while I know for a fact that my body is changing constantly. It's one of the things that I can hold on to.