He was up scratching again around 3am, and I could hear it through the wall even with the white noise machine going. We’ve been sleeping in separate rooms for about 3 weeks now because neither of us actually rests when we’re in the same bed during a flare.
I work from home, so there’s no commute to shake off a bad night in. Straight from bed to the desk, and I ended up spending close to an hour this morning just doodling in the corner of a notebook instead of opening my email. Not something I’d normally admit but that’s genuinely where my head was. I don’t think I’ve gotten up from this chair more than twice since 8am.
Then this afternoon I opened the budget spreadsheet, which I only just started keeping again after avoiding it for months, and saw we’ve put $210 into this in the last 4 weeks alone. Unscented detergent, a second humidifier because the first one died, the one moisturizer that doesn’t sting him, plus the copay from the derm visit. None of it is a huge number on its own. Seeing it all added up in one column just sat heavier than I expected.
I know I’m not the one with the itching or the skin actually falling apart here. But I’m the one googling ingredient lists at 11pm and moving my work calls around his appointments, and at some point that turns into its own kind of tired, one I don’t really have a word for. 5 months into this particular flare and I don’t feel like I have a complaint that sounds big enough to say out loud to anyone who isn’t going to just tell me to hang in there.
Didn’t really have anywhere else to put this today.