Afraid Of The Dark

It is way past midnight. I lie on the love seat, the closest thing I have to a full size couch. My dog, Blu, is stretched out across my legs, sound asleep.

I am reluctant to turn off the television. I don't want to go to bed. Recently, when it is totally quiet and very late, I feel a deep, sad sense of fear.

I am copying the 700 some pages of medical records from my former doctor, before I deliver them to my new doctor. I didn't know I would have this opportunity not only to read my records, but to protect myself by copying them. I need to do this, but the emotional price is high.
My records are filled with "inaccuracies" from all sources. My own doctor has made disparaging comments about me as a person and about the serious medical symptoms with which I must live. They are tacked on to the bottom of report pages from office visits.

He has been my internist and endocrinologist for seventeen years. As I go through these records, which also include reports from outside doctors paid by my disability insurance company, I want to scream -- but I do not want to scare my neighbors. I have cried and cried and cried. I trusted this man, but this trust was not warranted.

The further back I go in test records, the more I am aware of just how negligent he was. He missed the markers, recorded in emergency room visits over years, of a serious, degenerative disorder of the autonomic nervous system of the brain. He didn't even recognize the symptoms of this illness after it was diagnosed by a reputable cardiologist with a tilt table test. One time, his nurse threatened to call the police when I had collapsed from this disabling condition (called Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome).

Worse than all of this is what I would call malignant neglect. For over twelve years, he did absolutely nothing about the increasing warning signs of heart disease. It shows up throughout my bloodwork. My new doctor was horrified by my cholesterol and triglyceride numbers, as they are in the upper stratosphere (six years ago, my cholesterol was 339 and my triglyerides were 396). Even without these numbers, diabetics have five times the normal risk for heart attacks.

My new doctor started me on medication and aspirin therapy the very day I first met him. Since I first was made aware of these test results, I had already completely changed my diet and eat enough oatmeal and walnuts that sometimes they appear in my dreams. I lost weight. I exercise. But there is hardly any change. In June of 2008, I spent 30 hours in our local hospital with the symptoms many women experience with heart attacks, but they could not find a cause. Of course, they stopped short of doing an angiogram, because my internist did not think it was necessary.

When it is so quiet and dark, the fear and the sadness is overwhelming. Did I find the new doctor soon enough? Have I already had a silent heart attack (as the new doctor told me I may have had)? Has my life span been greatly shortened by the former, uncaring doctor?

Will I ever get to finish copyrighting and recording the over seventy songs I have written? I want my songs to be heard. I want to record my voice singing them. I ran out of money for recording two and a half years ago. How will I ever find the money to continue?

Will I finish my book? I am so very ill, I can do almost nothing. Will I be able to survive on my own? Will I be able to be of support to my children, who both have the same long term illness that started all this for me? I own nothing. What will become of me?

I have great difficulty writing, when I am paralyzed by fear.

And so, I will simply post the words to one of my favorite songs, knowing that no one will have any idea of the tune, dynamics, accompaniment, or vocal range.

But tonight, I feel much as I did when I wrote this song. It is copyrighted, so I at least know it is mine to post. You can try to imagine the song, but the feelings are all there.

WHAT I MEAN TO SAY

(c) 2006 Mary Lou Worster Anderson

What I mean to say, behind all these tears,
What I mean to say, that no one ever hears
Is, "I am lost here, all alone,
And I can't even find my way home."

What I mean to sing, behind all these sighs,
What I mean to sing and shout across the skies
Is, "I don't even know why, and I don't understand.
Won't somebody, please, take my hand?"

What I need to feel and what I long to know,
For this, I would leave all I have and walk each dusty road
Just to find love that stays
And doesn't run away.

What I mean to pray, behind these feeble words,
Is, "Guide me every day, for life is so absurd,
For I am lost here, all alone,
And I can't even find my way home."

To my readers, whoever you are, may God bless you all.