I keep telling outreach workers at my supportive housing complex to watch out for my health issues, because although I may look just fine on most days, every now and then my symptoms become graphic and that’s bad news. One such problem is recurrent infections, as you can see on the featured image.

I have such acute infections about once a year on average, in the face or elsewhere. And if you think this one looks bad, you should have seen me in September last year with swelling as large as my fist on my right cheek, or a couple years before when ulcers bore through the skin of both of my hands. As a result I’m frequently put on antibiotics, which until recently had never failed me even though the infections keep getting worse over the years.

Well I was put on cephalexin yesterday morning with a diagnosis of periorbital cellulitis, but for the first time in my life an antibiotic had no effect whatsoever, and within twenty-four hours the swelling grew from moderate to obscene. Right now I can hardly open my left eye, and the right eye is affected as well. It also hurts even more than it looks like since the infection hits the trigeminal nerve and I have atypical trigeminal neuralgia year-long to begin with.

So I’m being given ceftriaxone intravenously instead, which I hope is going to work because this infection is really killing me. That being said, even if this antibiotic does work, recovery may take several weeks during which I’ll be out of commission; don’t ask me how long—or what the plan is if ceftriaxone fails. In the meantime I have to report to the hospital every morning for my IV, which is going to be further draining and time consuming.

And that’s in addition to every other health issue that’s been plaguing me since I was born. Seriously, I hate self-pity posts but I’ve also learned that if people don’t see my pain they never get it. Think about it next time I put everything aside to advocate for you instead because I’m likely bearing even worse than you do.

As for every one of you who either anticipated or worried about what my next plan to raise Hell was, well this wasn’t part of the plan, so unfortunately my plan for the next couple months is to chill watching anime at home. I won’t attend any events or organising meetings, and expect few blog posts for a while. I’ll do my best to honour every commitment I’ve taken so far as an advocate but even that may prove difficult. Have fun without me…