May 6, 2022. Baylor Hospital. Another stay. A social worker shows up. Not weird. What is weird? She tells me I qualify for mental disability. No question. She explains gently: disability might get me basic health care. Maybe even help with my failing pancreas. She’s already booked me for psychiatry at Parkland.
Why do I qualify? Severe atrophy. My brain is shrinking. Neurons dying, connections breaking, brain volume dropping. Thinking, memory, functioning—slipping away. I don’t know how much I’ve lost. I just know I miss it. I miss my brain. All of it.
My brain is officially disabled.
When the liver can’t clear toxins from the blood, brain function can deteriorate. It’s called hepatic encephalopathy (HE). It can strike suddenly or creep in over time.
Hemochromatosis, meanwhile, is supposedly manageable. The main treatment is phlebotomy: removing blood to lower iron levels. Simple enough, if you have health coverage. I don’t. So the iron keeps accumulating while my body finds increasingly creative ways to poison itself.
Obviously, I’m going to knit. And knit. When everything else feels beyond my control, I can still make something with my hands. One stitch at a time. Something tangible. Something mine.
Mentally disabled. Knit, knit, knit. Knit, knit, knit. Put a rainbow on it.
I’m fucking crazy. Infinitely so.
But at least I know I’ll never be anemic.
