Trapped.

Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved.

Bars and shadows and bare earth beneath a hot oppressive sun, and two days' worth of forecast rains that failed to deliver. We may get a bit in the next few minutes, or that may bypass us, too. But the lines remind me how trapped I am now, and that has nothing to do with the weather.

Another night of no sleep. Pure, raw exhaustion, and I still couldn't drop off, even for a few minutes, until after 5 AM. Fitful dozing/waking until I gave up at 7:30. Don't suggest I take something; my body responds even worse to sleep meds than it does to no sleep at all. And that's if they even work, which most of them don't. The pain is completely out of control now, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

I was supposed to get blood drawn this morning, but given how the tech ghosted a few weeks ago without telling anyone, I figured I better call. Yeah, he was there . . . but with no intranet. Meaning that he couldn't do blood draws. No, it's not that it he couldn't physically do them; it's that the lab company refuses to let him, because he couldn't bill our debit card instantly instead of sending me a written bill instead.

None of this is health care. It's just profiteering off death.

But I had to pick up my scrips anyway (one of which I had to wait for because they hadn't bothered to put it up yet), and so we stopped at the post office so I could ship the items purchased by folks who wanted me to send them that way. Sorry, y'all. No power, so the post office can't send anything. why? Because they can't print a label, never mind that everything's got the address labels on it; it doesn't have their little inked code. So that will also have to wait for tomorrow. Hopefully. 

But I stood in line, leaning heavily on my cane, with an unmasked colonizer Karen constantly invading my space. No one here is wearing masks. And as soon as I start the new med, I will have no immune system left. Yes, I do feel trapped.

And there's still all the rest. Path analysis of the biopsy, which will be costly; the more expensive testing for the TB (now bumped to tomorrow) just so I can get the damn thing done; more bills on the last round of labs; more meds, more more more more . . . . That means sales, but I don't have the physical wherewithal to chase it, because of my pain and fatigue levels, along with some other problematic symptoms that are probably the lupus, being entirely off the charts. Still, I have to suck it up on this front, too, because we need sales, and I have to shove the rest down long enough to make some. That's it; nothing else matters right now.

Anyway, links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priorities are all the mosquito-prevention items, especially the portables and the patio-surface ones, because Wings can take them around the land with his as he works);
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

And if you've been contemplating a purchase? This would be a very, very good time to do it; I've got to make up this staggering outlay somehow. There's lots of fabulous new work, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.