MY SKIN
(dictated, mildly edited by me, this is an introductory post to the letter P)
You’d think I think this could be interfesting interesting. I have so much of it everywhere over me, scars every which way the one closing my stump the most sensational. The right foot and ankle I have left, screwed together some clearly visible on its outside, small screws lashing a tin plate to my whatever bone fewmur maybe but way down at the bottom now the site of an ugly lesion in the middle of a loonie circle perfect psoriasis blemishing my perfect record of having no open sores, but how can I complain like a personal care resident I know with bedsores and psoriasis covering his entire back and butt he tries not to scratch. My wife, disability activist Michelle Hewitt in her research discovered that In 2018 Chrissy Dunnington, with spina bifida was a Long Term Care resident, essentially covered by bedsores, but one a fist sized hole on her back exposing bone, admitted to hospital where she died from being mistreated while in LTC. I buy Gold Bond lotion, sometime Lubriderm. Do I understand the smallness of my discomfort in comparison, Yes, damn it I do. As the saying go “I can’t complain, but I do.”
I use a lot of extra strength Voltaren, and twice a day I smear in copious amounts of Diclofenac 10% for joint pain, prescription strength topical. My sister says they use more topicals in the EU, and if they work like this does no wonder. She smears in clonidine on her legs flashing with electrics polyneuropathy we share, but mine is still nascent in the leg I have left, and I can tolerate Gabapentin though I wonder if it isn’t one of the reasons for stupid head I get more of now and I do have skin all over my head, though not a lot of hair. Acne no longer an issue if it ever was. If it ever was. My skin rumples on my back as the cartilage crumbles, it’s hubris debris I say making a joke. The amount of skin is not a joke when I need to grease my creases to avoid rashes or jock itch or yeast infections. I use Clotrimazole when I have too, embarrassed it’s only on the women’s health shelf in my town, also a zinc salve like the Zincofax we used on ou children’s bum rashes when they were babies. First defense is good old Vaseline. I caught my foreskin in my zipper when I was five. It hurt.
This is an introduction to the letter P, in the Abject Alphabet which has a lot of words to read already. But tonight I treat you to a short film about Pears. Coming up next.