Full Body Blister; May 26 2019

In the original version of Snow White, the Brother’s Grimm unknowingly hit upon a really apt comparison. You might know this version: it ends with the Evil Queen forced to dance in iron shoes that have been heated over a fire, until she dies.

That’s a little bit what my feet feel like after three days of walking around a convention. Except, the pain in my feet decided life is too short to stay in one place. It’s travelled up my legs, my sciatic nerve, my back...

Chronic pain can be devastating on a good day. On bad days, it’s literally crippling. I’ve now reached the point where I have to admit to myself that I need a wheelchair for big events like this.

I’ve known for a while that I wouldn’t be able to walk forever. Well, obviously, ‘forever’ implies a length of time beyond my lifespan and I’m like, 90% sure zombies aren’t plausible so I wouldn’t be wandering around post-mortem. I think I was twelve years old when I found out that the pain in my legs wasn’t considered normal, and I started to wonder what that would mean for me in the future.

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome isn’t a widespread thing. Most doctors I see need to ask me what it is, even. The gist is that my cartilage never formed correctly, meaning my bones didn’t either. It’s only getting worse as I grow older and a lot of people with my particular brand of EDS wind up wheelchair-bound by their thirties.

I’m not looking forward to it. It’d be weird if I was, I suppose. But it’s still something I came to grips with early on.

I get a lot of pitying looks and sympathy coos when I talk about this stuff. Wheelchairs are really limiting, and ever since I had a baby (thus I take a stroller everywhere I go) I’ve been keenly aware of how inaccessible the world is for anyone who isn’t able-bodied. Anime North has people in charge of making the convention as accessible as possible, but that doesn’t meant the Toronto Congress Centre was made with disabilities in mind.

Still, the con staff really does their best in this regard, and I’ve got to give them credit for that. People are generally pretty understanding around the con scene.

The pain I’m in, though. Yikes. It’s hard to even focus on typing through the pain.

Let’s knock out another paragraph of our improvised story before my brain shuts down completely!

To my credit, I didn’t sigh. I knelt by the body of my fallen friend and dipped my fingertips against the cooling cavity in his neck. Leander, he was called. He’d had a funny laugh and keen eyes. Once my hands had been completely coated, I pressed my palm to the marble and drew a piss-poor interpretation of a turkey.

“Anything, Seyhra?”

My patron goddess chirped like an angry cat. “Maybe it needed to be virgin blood.”

I looked down at Leander. To my knowledge, he was a virgin. I wasn’t going to sell out a bro like that, though. I’d killed the guy; the least I could do now was preserve his dignity.