I'm right here, boys and girls.

If by OK you mean "not suicidal", you can rest easy on that count. But other than that, everything stinks.

The pain has gotten so bad that I cannot tolerate sitting on the toilet for any length of time. I had an accident in bed while debating whether or not to subject myself to the pain of using the toilet.

I started using a bedpan after that and even THAT hurts, plus I can barely get on it by myself, thanks to years of surgical butchery. I cried the first night I used it for at least half an hour.

I've been crying a lot lately.

They've started running medical tests on me, what I thought would be a bone density scan was actually a test for a bone infection. They injected me with dye, scanned me on a narrow stretcher, kept me there just laying there doing nothing for awhile, then scanned me some more. I missed my ride home and had to haggle for another one.

To their credit, the techs did everything they could to keep me comfortable, impressive considering my condition and the fact that I couldn't hold my own leg up as I normally would; it would have ruined the scan.

They want to do ANOTHER scan, possibly this Friday, but I will be on a pilgrimage to Quebec, more on that later.

The possibility that I may have yet something else wrong with me turns my stomach. As someone in a psychiatric day treatment program once said, "I have enough on my plate already." I'm taking seven prescriptions (or should be, if I weren't trying to save money on a welfare budget). I would rather not up that number to eight meds or more. Or even worse, discover that I have something that requires yet another operation.

Contrary to what one may believe, disabled people are not born with an additional store of courage. I feel fear when these things come upon me, just like anyone else. (Sorry to disappoint you.) We are no more kinder or gentler than the rest of the population for that matter. What you see on here then is me, and not something that my disability has magically empowered me with.

I feel like no one wants to be with me when I'm like this, when I'm angry and sad and lonely and afraid. So I isolate, and I've been isolating even more as of late. Doug's the only one who still hears from me and it's a wonder he hasn't told me to shut up yet. He doesn't say anything, but then again, what do you say to someone like me at a time like this?

Still, I'd wish he'd say something, just to let me know that he's not mad at me. Is that what this silence is for? He's told me about a handicapped friend of his who's always happy. He must be so disappointed in me.

Well, I was like his friend once. Now I'm not and I suspect the lights will never "come on" for me. Just once, I want to shut up and stop complaining and just put my arms around someone.

I'm so lonely that I've cried myself to sleep at night. I spend so much time looking after my physical needs that the fact that I'm human and need companionship gets lost in the equation. And I'm realizing for the first time in my life, how alone I am and how alone I've been. I wrapped myself up in my own imaginary world to survive years of emotional abuse and surgery and I stayed there when I moved out on my own.

The pain ripped me back into reality, to my eternal regret and to my distress, I cannot go back inside that world for any length of time. I do not know why.

Anyway, I'm back in the real world and I'm all alone except for a few cyber friends. But I just want to be held. I just want to hear someone's voice besides my own. Apart from the attendant, I have no reason to talk all day. But I'm so afraid of being abused or being seen as a nutcase that it keeps me inside these four walls.

I just want to put my arms around someone and be loved. But no one could ever love me, my parents proved that.

Since I have no one to hold, I may as well shut up and stop complaining. What reason do I have to complain anyway? I'm not dying.

I'm sorry if I scared anyone by my prolonged absence. I've just been feeling sad lately and when I'm sad, I withdraw from people. (I got yelled at for crying by my father.) You are reading a post from someone who cries in a church bathroom.