Friday Update #46: Cat Scratch Fever

Source: Melonenbrot on tumblr

I swear to God, I didn't have a coffee addiction until I became a professional writer...

Bluntly, I'm sick as a... well, not a dog, but a cat. But lemme explain.

The day after I wrote about the chlorine gas leak I talked about earlier in the month, my apartment started to become infested with fleas. My theories are:

• I had an unpacked box with dormant flea eggs from moving out, as my cats allegedly had fleas as younger kittens and they had been confined to my bedroom (even if the vet I took them to for neutering said they were clean), so it's plausible that a flea could've laid eggs in my belongings and they only hatched after I was frantically moving stuff around to seal the bottom of my patio door.

• Opening that patio door for even a moment lead to the fleas seeking refuge from the chlorine gas to get into my apartment and spread.

• One of my neighbors got fleas, which means I got fleas.

• One of the nearby recently caught on fire, damaging the HVAC system for the other half of the building and destroying the internet cables I was using. The construction work has apparently been a mess, and given how close that side of the apartment is to a densely wooded area, I could see fleas being stirred up by the contractors and getting into the HVAC.

• A mail package I opened had fleas in it (yikes!)

The vector is something I'm going to have to worry about later, but for now, what happened was that my apartment got flooded with fleas. My little boys became fleabags, my ankles would get a few on me whenever I moved anywhere in the apartment, and I myself soon started to get covered in a few bites.

I was already badly struggling with all the things I've talked about recently, my 31st birthday was coming up on October 7th. Birthdays are already rough for me as they're a stark reminder of not only my mortality but of the most singularly defining event of my life and all its awfulness, but I knew it was going to be worse than ever this year. This one marked the 10th anniversary of the worst day of my life where I was initially (mis)diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, which I at the time thought gave me a prognosis of only a decade.

I wanted to pretend the day didn't exist, so I put my phone on DND as I ducked texts and phone calls from relatives. Not only did my OCD constantly assault me with heartbreaking possibilities of what (and who I) could have been had my brain been healthy, but I felt this profound sense of emptiness. Some part of me hadn't expected to live this long, yet I had, and I wasn't even sure I had been doing anything worthwhile with that time, let alone that I was going to wisely use that overtime.

In an effort to stay humble, I sometimes quip that I'm not nearly as creative as people think I am as I remind people that a lot of re:Dreamer stems from subconscious design decisions that led to it being such a personal story, but my imagination was on full blast for about 36 hours. I was drowning in an ocean of misery and despair with some of the most negative thoughts I have ever had in my life pulled me deeper and deeper.

I'm mildly surprised I didn't end up killing myself, but I sure did cry a lot that day and hate myself more than words can express.

I wasn't a functional person for the week before or the week after. I was just barely able to take care of myself by eating and taking my medications, and while I was able to keep my cats fed, give them water, and clean their litter box, managing the flea infestation was far beyond my abilities. I'd done research on how to manage the fleas. I'd ordered Precor 2000 flea killing spray, insect growth regulator, diatomaceous earth and a duster (it acts as a physical pesticide by removing moisture from the exoskeletons of insects, thus killing them), and flea bug bombs as a backup. I got flea collars, flea combs, flea shampoo, and Frontline flea killed to topically apply between my cats' shoulder blades. I told myself I was going to get this taken care of as soon as I had the supplies, but they arrived, and outside of treating my couch and somewhat consistently combing my cats, I wasn't able to do anything else.

I fucking hated myself so much during that time. I knew I was severely depressed, but the low energy levels were worse than that, like my body struggled to move. Being miserable on my own is one thing, but I couldn't even get my shit together enough to help my cats. I even worried this was a sign of my CBS worsening, as that gives me third spectrum of being tired separate from sleepiness or physical exhaustion. It's kind of like this sense of my mind and body being rusty: the gears can turn, but there's a lot of friction. Coffee usually acts like lubricant for that (in addition to its other stimulant properties), but even 4 large cups a day weren't enough to keep me upright. I'd be up for about 3 hours, and while I could do the bare minimum of chores, I had no energy for proper cleaning, let alone work. I hated that I was late to the second anniversary update in a row. I tried to cook, but I barely had any appetite. My head was foggy, like it gets when the worst parts of my hormonal cycle kick off, and I hated that every time I sat down at my desk and tried to motivate myself to get something done, all that happened was less than an hour of work until my thoughts slowed to a crawl. I would crawl back to bed, angry at how useless I was, depressed out of my mind that I was wasting days, and even dysphoric. I've been avoiding looking into the mirror for a while now, but the fleeting glimpses showed me I looked just as awful as I felt. I've been jumping between antidepressants to find a combination that is going to work for me, but in that interlude, those medication adjustments have likely contributed a lot to my poor mental health. I'm used to feeling frustrated about my health being out of my hands, but because I've been jumping between antidepressants to find a combination that is going to work for me, those medication adjustments have likely contributed a lot to my poor mental health in this interlude.

Yeah, so it turns out my depressed, stupid, and hormonal ass was also sick. I'd been so worried about what the fleas were doing to the cats that I didn't realize the obvious that a ton of flea bites were probably bad for humans too. I at first thought the slight pain when swallowing was COVID that I was just going to have to ride out, but I eventually realized from how much the lymph nodes on my lower neck had swollen up and how my eyes were bloodshot red with very prominent and dark red veins that I was probably sick in a different way.

After a COVID test came back negative, I went to my general practitioner on the 14th, but my usual doctor was out so I had to see a nurse practitioner. Seeing a new doctor is always an annoying affair for me, as almost all of them have very little to no knowledge of what corticobasal syndrome even is, so I have to explain it to them, which takes a fair bit of time even when I'm not fatigued, depressed, anxious, and so on, and then I'll often have to advocate for myself to not have the reason I am going to that doctor be dismissed as being caused by the CBS. After that awkward conversation and testing negative for the flu or strep, I eventually got antibiotics.

Based on the swollen lymph nodes, bloodshot eyes, fatigue, decreased appetite, general malaise, and tons of swollen flea bites, I almost certainly have cat scratch fever. No, not the Ted Nugent song, but the disease. The fleas would have spread from my asymptomatic cats to me, and because it can take about a week for symptoms to appear, I probably got a higher dose of that bacteria than normal because I was barely functioning in that time and just stopped caring about getting bit by fleas. Cat scratch fever usually resolves itself, but given all the stress I'm under, I'm starting to worry that even the antibiotics aren't doing much to help my strained immune system. I might need a second course of them, as I was told I would start to notice myself feeling better in two days when it's been five.

In the meantime, I finally pulled myself together enough to try to deal with the source of that infection. Management had said they'd be sending an exterminator, but I'd been waiting for almost two weeks and couldn't wait any longer. I didn't have the energy to clean the apartment like I wanted, but I got my cats' water fountain, food bowl, and a backup litter box into my car, put my cats in the car, bug bombed my apartment, and chilled with my cats for two hours, starting around 4:00 PM.

They were extremely stressed during this time. They were panting, which cats only do when they're basically having an anxiety attack. I realized as I fell asleep in the back that this was actually the first time they'd ever been "outdoors" and it was probably sensory overload for them.

When the bug bombs were empty after two hours, I went back to my apartment to ventilate it for another two hours by turning on the AC and opening the windows. To my horror, the fleas were still there, and after trying really hard not to not break down into frustrated tears, I went into a sort of do or die rage, put on the gas mask I'd gotten for the chlorine gas cloud, sprayed an excessive amount of flea killer spray in my apartment, followed it up with a general misting of insect growth regulator and targeted sprays at headboards or other areas that could be ingress points for the fleas, covered everything in a layer of dusted diatomaceous earth, and went back to my car, intending to spend the night there to let everything safely fumigate since there was no way that environment would be habitable to me or my cats, let alone those fleas.

I only had 2 donuts and a half sleeve of Ritz crackers for food, so I drove to my pharmacy to get my antibiotics and got Arby's for dinner since that medication needs to be taken with food.

I am fully aware that human food isn't compatible with a cat's digestive system, but I gave my cats a little bit of roast beef for being such brave little boys.

I drove back to my apartment complex and found a quiet corner away from the streetlamps. As luck would have it, this was the first truly cold night this year. While I had brought two extra long-sleeve shirts, my nighttime medications, and my pillow with me, I'd otherwise neglected a blanket and only had thin track pants on my legs. I started to feel very cold when the temperature dropped to 47°F (8.3°C) in the early AM, and I had to briefly turn the car on to heat myself back up. I also somehow forgot I'd left a large black towel in my car, which I'd mistaken as a sham cloth, so I even had a makeshift blanket.

As I curled up in the back seat in an awkward position like a mirrored sideways S, Ashton climbed to the free space on the seat around my stomach, and Pequeño climbed into area behind my calves, I started to fall asleep. I remember thinking, "My life might be shit (my OCD makes me make lists in my head, and I did that here)... but in this one moment, things feel okay."

I checked on the apartment after waking up at around 8:30 AM. To my relief, I only found two fleas left, and those had been on areas I knew were going to be harder to deal with (under my mattress and in a corner wall with furniture). After treating those areas, I went back to my car to be with my cats until those ventilated, only coming back at around 9:00 AM.

My cats had been in that car for 17 hours, but their struggles weren't done yet, as I had to give both a bath with cat shampoo. I took them to my bathroom in their crates, shut the door, and turned on the water.

Surprisingly, Ashton, who is usually a diva, wasn't a problem. I held him by the back of the neck and he sort of just stopped fighting it after a few minutes. Pequeño was the problem child here. He made sounds like I was murdering him as I got him wet and held him in place, and he escaped a number of times.

God, they look like completely different cats when wet.

I then got my exhausted self to bed properly and passed out for the whole day.

Since then, I've only seen 4 fleas in the whole apartment, but when doing daily comb checks on my cats, they still had some fleas on them, so they had to go back for another dunk.

Cats, or rats? I'll let you decide.

I am still very much sick as I type this. I got up at 4:30 PM and I am already out of energy at 7:30 PM. I feel like a useless piece of shit for not being able to work right now no matter how much coffee I pour into me, but even though I can acknowledge that I am sick and extremely fatigued, and I can feel myself slumping in my chair, and I know I am going to have to go back to bed soon and finish this later, I still fucking hate this and myself.

Haha yeah back at 6:00 PM the next day. I did manage to wake up at 10:30 AM (from one of my neighbors playing an electric violin of all things), but I had to go back to bed after 2 hours because I was so exhausted; I only woke up again 30 minutes ago.

So, uh... yeah, I'm still quite sick, and the female hormones ain't helping any of that (and I've been told immune systems get weaker when this part of the female hormone cycle happens).

My levels as of the 17th being this dogshit is probably not helping me. This is absurd for someone who's been on these things for 18+ months and who has been very careful about maintaining regular dosage (even if I have to wake up with an alarm to stay on schedule). Seriously, I'm at half of what my testosterone levels used to be (1,300 ng/dL), and that estradiol is well below the 150 pg/mL area that's supposed to be maintained with feminizing HRT. With so many of my CBS's worst symptoms being tied to that second level, it would explain the higher-than-average brain fog, arm twitches, and deep shoulder pain.

I've got a cup of coffee next to me to keep me awake; black, because it's good coffee that doesn't need to be polluted by sugar or creamer. I am only up so I can get this post out the door and because I hate myself when I stay in bed, but I am fried. Outside of being half-focused on a voice call conversation, playing a mindless game of Civilization V against the computer, watching YouTube videos about random topics, doing the bare necessity of chores for myself, and staying vigilant for fleas, I'm not coherent enough to do anything more, let alone write the nuanced scenes I'm working on in re:Dreamer to anywhere close to my quality standards.

Speaking of that... the anniversary update will not be in fact covering the Keisuke pool sex scene. I realized a few days into the development of that scene that I did not have the mental fortitude to do that much work when I knew I was approaching a meat grinder for my mental health. I've instead opted to revise Keisuke Day 2 morning as it has a few plot holes that need to be resolved (such as being written as if Z and Keisuke have already had sex). There's, uh... I dunno, you'll see what it's about when you see it.

Fuck, there's probably a lot more I want to talk about, but I can't even think of those topics, let alone have the energy to properly write about them. When I'm too cooked to even ramble (except about my cats), something ain't right with me.

I'll... see you when I see you, I guess?