I'm being pathetic this week, apparently. And not by choice.

I don't like being sick. It bugs the snot out of me -- sometimes literally, but that's a mental image I could do without. I don't like when my body, apart from my brain, decides that it will spend the day in bed, thankyouverymuch and there's no changing its.... mind?

It's weeks like this I'm reminded I have leukemia. For the most part, particularly since it went into a partial remission, it's been possible for me to forget that nagging fact. There are days I can even deny it. I mean, I feel fine therefore I must be fine, right?

Today, and for the past few days, I've been extremely aware that my body doesn't work quite the same way anymore. Sometimes I joke and say I'm very old for my age -- and then some days I really feel it. (Usually that line refers to my mental state, but there are days when I might as well be a permanent resident of the local geriatric ward if the way I feel is any indication.)

These are the days it's sometimes hard to believe Paul, because while he addresses the days wherein we are aware that outwardly we are wasting away, he's oddly silent about the days in which it doesn't really feel like an inward renewal. Some days it feels like whatever part of me is immortal -- soul, spirit, whatever -- is feeling the wear (and the weary), too. So far, I think the thing that annoys me most about CLL is that even though sometimes sick is sick, sometimes sick is just tired. And not just any tired -- achy, bone-sore, limb-heavy, eye-drooping, slow-breathing, thought-thickening, joint-stiffening, will-killing, soul-sucking tired. Leukemia doesn't bite -- it just kind of gnaws. Well, and punctures, but that's mostly the result of blood draws and bone marrow aspirates. Y'know, the things that are intended to help, the cures that are worse than the disease.

Ooh. I sound pouty. I'm really not. I'm just thinking about the this because I happen to be at home dealing with the tired sort of sick (well, and a couple of other sorts, but they're hardly postable) and writing is more interesting to me than daytime television, so I write. And e-mail copiously. And drink Dr. Pepper. And eventually succumb to the horrors of daytime television, but such is life. We all have our bears to cross.