Or, if you prefer your metaphors more culinary, a Chinese restaurant menu, one from column A (upper body) two from Column B (from tush to toe). How about cinematic? My life is combination chick flick/ medical drama/black comedy.

The point is that I’m living in a shitstorm of maladies. I’m visited with Parkinson’s for starters. For some ridiculous reason the term “visit” conjures up Henry James and Jane Austen characters leaving calling cards upon dropping by for tea. Now those guys knew how to visit! My “visitors” are more on the order of a couple of miscreant repo guys come to take my car….. brandishing tire irons.

I know! Let’s pretend I’m a character out of an Edith Wharton novel. I spend the day taking laudanum (a form of opium popular during her lifetime; today’s version would of course be gummies) and reacting to visitors hastening to my side as I am “unwell.”

One such visitor might be my physician, perhaps come to dispense more laudanum.

And it appears that Lady Parkinson, the grand dame residing in Apartment 1402, has been feeling a bit lonely, so she invites her pals Acid Reflux and Muscle Spasm to join the party. And now they are three. But heheheh, Not for long my pretties. With stretching and medication, your days are numbered.

And now, I await my brougham (Lyft) to transport me to the Massachusetts General Hospital for a routine follow-up visit with my neurologist.

Acid and Muscle are starting to wake and hey! They’ve been a bit less unpleasant than yesterday. Could it be they’re actually leaving permanently?

Let’s focus on the present. It’s just me and Lady P, ready to start the day.. As for Acid and Muscle… Let’s let sleeping illnesses lie, at least for now. No new “visitors,” I say. Please!