Saw Dick this morning. Relief! He says I’m doing great. Okay. I needed to hear that. The pain and sick feeling came on while I was in Dick’s office. It’s like when you get medication in the hospital and you can feel it spreading through your body. It starts in my gut, deep. Then it flows up to my chest and neck and head and down my arms until I can feel it tingling in every fingertip.

It doesn’t feel good. I slip back into the observer. Let the tears come. If it’s the Angel of Death girl I was, I have to engage my hands. I just keep them down. Can’t let this wave of anger take over my body.

Right now I’m kind of depleted. Exhausted. I can’t believe I wrote a rational letter to the editor last week. They called for permission to publish it.

Meanwhile, this pervasive background of dread pervades my days. I did not have a happy childhood. It’s a miracle I’m alive.