I am Bonez's Nerve Cells

Nervy

I do lots of things for Bonez. Like other nerve cells in other bodies, I help her to move, I help her senses work, I help her function in her environment.

But sometimes I like to be mischievous! Like with her senses. I don't mess with sight too much because, well, she's been wearing glasses since she was nine years old so I feel like she's had enough trouble with her sight (you should see the coke-bottle lenses in her glasses - sheesh!). But the other senses are fair game.

Hearing I can't really take credit for. Bonez has had some chemo that makes her have ringing in her ears. Not really my doing, but I like it when it messes with her.

I have lots of fun mucking around with her sense of smell - especially when I can convince her that water smells bad. It's the same water that she showers in every day, same water she brushes her teeth with. But sometimes, it smells bad. Of course, it only smells bad to her. I also make some smells so strong that they turn her stomach. Smells that should be comforting, like cinnamon or taco meat, will be so overpowering that she needs to breathe through her mouth in order not to gag.

Then there's taste. I can make some of her favorite foods taste downright strange, strange enough that she questions whether she will ever eat them again. A BLT at Friendly's tastes like cardboard. Green vegetables taste bitter. Her favorite Pumpernickel Pretzels taste chemically. I do show mercy with this one - Bonez needs to eat lots and lots of protein during her treatments, so I don't mess with the taste of meats or eggs or fish.  But everything else is fair game!

And finally - the pièce de résistance - her sense of touch. With the help of her chemo and a little of my magic, I have created a wonking case of neuropathy in Bonez's feet. It's fantastic what I've done. Imagine this: her feet are numb, yet they hurt and itch! BRILLIANT!!! Numb - she can't walk barefoot because she can't feel what she's stepping on and could injure herself and not know it. But juxtaposed over that numbness is pain! Sometimes a dull ache, other times a stabbing pain. Random pain - I like to keep her on her toes (no pun intended). And then, just to put the cherry on the sundae, at night, when she's settling down trying to sleep, I make the arches of her feet itch. First one foot, then the other. Back and forth. Itchy itchy itchy.

I love Bonez, but she's so fun to mess with that I just can't stop myself!

I am Bonez's Amygdala.

I am Bonez's Amygdala.

Most folks have no clue that they have an Amygdala, let alone what one does. I do lots of things, but my favorite duty is that I am the fight-or-flight center. I control fear, anxiety, panic - all the "roller coaster" emotions.

I have a secret for you - Bonez HATES roller coasters. She isn't exactly a wimp, but if she could live her whole life never ever getting on a "thrill" ride, she would be thrilled! But I, her Amygdala, would be bored out of my gourd.

So where do I get my fun? I have fun while Bonez is dreaming. I don't decide WHAT the dream is about, my influence is how Bonez FEELS while she's dreaming. And since the emotions I specialize in are not the warm-fuzzy variety, the feelings aren't typically happy-happy-joy-joy.

And now that Bonez has to take lots of medication, I the Amygdala get to take lots of medication. And the more medication I get, the more latitude I have with the feelings I evoke. Things that might seem silly otherwise become morbid and frightening under my influence.

Like last night during the dream in which a friend suffers a debilitating brain injury and has to live with unending agony - I made sure Bonez felt extreme sadness and despair, to the point that even after she woke up she cried with the memory of the pain on her friend's face even though she knew it was just a dream.

Or a few nights ago in the one where Bonez and her Mom went to get tattooed at a bar on the strip and Bonez just wanted a simple small silver chain on her upper arm and ended up with a metallic powder blue swirling monstrosity that crawled up her arm, over her shoulder, up her neck, and around her face including across her eye and I gave Bonez a feeling of panic and shock and anxiety that while the tattoo was going up her face she was powerless to prevent it.

Or the one a couple weeks ago with the haunted house with the glowing red gopher hole and the gopher that lives there can make a child's heart explode or rip off body parts with one fatal glance and I made her feel horror and terror and panic and fear and disgust at the sight of her childhood friends being so grotesquely killed.

Or (this is her husband's favorite) the one where there were mice in the bed and she could hear their feet creeping along just against her back and she couldn't wake up or move and the mice were taking over and she was paralyzed with fear.

I may look like a sweet little Amygdala, but I have a heart and a sense of humor as black as coal. BOO!

I am Bonez's Urethra.

Urethra & Bladder, June 2010

And I HATE it!!!

I don't call it "Bonez", I call it "It". It isn't somewhere fun or nice to live, I'm just stuck here. It's miserable here.  Polluted, full of crappy chemicals and all this other garbage. So why should I make things easier? Duh?

I mostly hang out with my BFF Bladder. We've been friends FOREVER! She's the best. And just like me, she can't stand living in this awful place. Everyone says she looks sweet, but she makes more trouble than I do. And I'm in trouble alot. Especially now that Cath moved into the neighborhood. Holy crap, do we hate her! She's this major pain that acts like she's all that and a bag of chips, but really one day she's going to get schooled in what's up. Because Bladder's boyfriend Raphe and my boyfriend Ramus are members of the most bad-ass gang up in this hood - the Urethral Sphincters. All we would have to do is give ONE WORD and Cath would so be out of here. Her and her sweet little innocent disposition.

The only reason we haven't done anything so far is that we can use Cath to hurt It. Like last night, oh my gosh, you should have SEEN what we did! It's lying there, trying to relax and crap, and all of a sudden, we decide to have some fun. Bladder had this cigarette and she blew this HUGE puff of smoke right in Cath's face. Cath tried to play it cool, but you could tell she just wanted to run and cry. And then, I started lighting matches and burning Cath just barely so it wouldn't really do any real damage that I could get in trouble for, but OMG, you could tell she just wanted to cry. And then she gets all smart and somehow demands that It send some water to stop the burning. As if that would stop us!

It took FIVE tries before Cath could hold it together long enough to go home without looking like she got a beat-down. Bladder and I were actually getting bored so eventually we went to hang with Raphe and Ramus. And eventually I guess we fell asleep. Oh well.

It can try all it wants to be calm and submissive to the Sphincters, but we aren't going to let up that easy. It's way too much fun being a bully!