At Risk

     I’m in the midst of my annual Spring Fibromyalgia Flare, and with that comes a whole host of symptoms. They’re comprised of ones you’re probably heard of, like chronic fatigue, pain, and IBS. Flares also bring more random symptoms, like horrific colds sores despite being herpes simplex free, and incredibly vivid dreams. Dreams so incredibly detailed, upon awakening you’d swear you’d been sleeping and dreaming for weeks. So vivid that I’ve felt rain soaked cobblestones under my bare feet, and the warm rays of the sun soaking into my skin under a bright blue sky. In my dreams, I’ve coordinated and executed vast cross-country moves, family reunions, and graduations. I’m not the only one to experience Flare Dreams. My father gets them, who was diagnosed with Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada in 1996, and I’ve shared anecdotal evidence with fellow chronically ill people online. Why this happens, like so much else of these illnesses, is a grand mystery. My personal theory is it has to do with hyperactivity in the brain’s “Triple Axis,” however, that’s a rabbit hole we’ll go down another time. Often, these dreams contain an important exchange of information from the unconscious to the conscious mind encoded in the strange fantastica floating across my sleeping brain, if I have the wisdom to see it.

    Last night, I had one of those Flare Dreams. I was inside some sort of dark, dusty house. I knew, in that omniscient way we have in dreams, that it was daytime and sunny outside, but for some reason all the windows were closed and lights off inside. Someone, I think my ex, was showing me a box high on a shelf - well, it wasn’t so much a box as it was a small, empty terrarium with no lid. Inside swarmed dozens of spiders struggling to climb to the top, while producing long streams of silk. I knew they were attempting to migrate, a phenomenon that has covered whole countrysides in floating spiders. Some people say it looks like it’s raining countless arachnids. This in itself seems to be the stuff of nightmares, but it’s a perfectly natural part of being a spider. Sometimes, you gotta migrate further than your little legs can carry you, so you cast off a long strand of silk to act like a parachute, and jump off from the highest point you can find. It sounds kinda fun actually. Some have been known to catch updrafts and sail for miles, which I find fascinating. These blooms of floating spiders are known as “aerial plankton,” just like the airborne version of plankton floating around in the sea. And just like their ocean-bound counterparts, aerial plankton serve as a pertinent food source to many migrating birds and other creatures of the air. I love random facts about the natural world, and I didn’t know about this one before yesterday afternoon. It fascinates me. “As above, so below.” Indeed.
     As I’m pondering this new information in my dream-space, I realize the bloom of spiders is rapidly spreading from the terrarium out into the rest of the room. They’re starting their migration, and I’m directly in their path! I try to jump out of the way, but there’s furniture blocking me. I can only walk backwards in that slow moving way that happens in dreams, when we really need to be moving like the Flash. Then, they’re all over me. I can feel the strands of spider silk sticking to me, feel them crawling all over me! I fall backwards onto the floor, rolling, trying to get them off. I’m allergic to spider bites of all kinds, even benign ones, and I have to get them off before they start biting or I’m going to have a really bad allergic reaction. The urgency is real, but everything’s happening in slow-motion and it’s too dim to see anything clearly. Then, the spiders start biting me, and I know I’m fucked. That’s when I woke up, with choked screams in my throat. I snuggled up in my sleeping boyfriend’s arms to calm myself. It wasn’t until after a few hits of cannabis and some good words from Alan Watts that I was finally able to go back to sleep.

Luis Fernández García / Wikimedia Commons

    So, what does this mean, if it does mean anything at all? This is my interpretation, and I think it all has to do with feeling incredibly vulnerable during this COVID-19 pandemic. You see, I was born with a hyperactive immune system. This means my body overreacts to things that are normally harmless, like non-poisonous spider bites, penicillin, dust mites, and by-products of natural processes that take place within our bodies. This is why I have Fibromyalgia. My immune system is like a drama queen of sorts, where things that are normally no big deal get blown out of proportion. This means anytime I catch the cold or flu, I get far more sick from it than most people. It hits me harder, lasts longer, and recovery is slower. Respiratory illnesses can quickly evolve into bronchitis or strep throat if I’m not super vigilant. As you can imagine, I’m definitely within the population considered most at risk for mortality should they catch COVID-19. This is fucking terrifying, to be completely honest. I’ve heard scientists describe stopping this pandemic as the equivalent of “trying to stop the wind.” How do you protect yourself against the wind?
    Back to the nightmare analysis: Homes = our bodies and personal spaces in dreams. Not being able to see inside = having a lack of information, knowledge, or insight into the nature of this novel illness. When I don’t understand how something works, I feel blind. When I don’t understand how something works, I don’t know how to protect myself from it. The aerial plankton represents COVID-19, and the natural order of things. You can’t control nature, you are subject to it. You can’t control the wind, you can only protect yourself from it as best you can. The fear of the spider bites in relation to my allergies is representative of my fear of succumbing to COVID-19, of the intense vulnerability I feel as I watch the world slip into illness and chaos from atop my Tujunga hilltop.
    How do I balance fear with faith? I don’t want to become paranoid, but I want to protect myself as best I can. I’m about as socially distanced as I can be, so that’s a start. I’ve been working remotely since 2013, and yesterday I told my martial arts master that I will be training from home instead of publicly in their gym for at least a few weeks. But, how far do I take this isolation? What if someone I retain contact with catches it, but doesn’t show symptoms, and they pass it to me? Is it still okay for me to go to the post office, or do I have Amir run my errands for me too? What if he catches it while he’s out and brings it home? How far should his social distancing go so we both remain safe? Where do you find the end of the line? I’m afraid I’m going to become a character from Death Stranding, living in a bunker underground, completely sealed off from the outside world. That sounds awful. I’ve already experienced long periods of isolation thanks to the Fibro, I’m not eager to repeat the experience. But at the same time, I want to remain as healthy as possible. These thought loops are exhausting and I haven’t got all the answers figured out yet.  
    You know what scares me more than the illness though, is fear itself. People get dangerous and scary really fast when they’re paranoid. Look at how people were losing their shit over toilet paper (which I still don’t get how that even became a thing, btw). Imagine how they’ll act if that is something real, like medicine or water? We gotta keep cool heads and stick together. We can’t be losing our shit over the last roll of toilet paper. We’re already fucked if that’s the case, regardless of who gets sick.

You can’t control the wind, but you can certainly remain in control of yourself. The more we all work on this individually, the better off we’ll be as a community.