Question of the day.

   Do you have any unusual scars? What’s the story behind them? 

   My answer: 

   Actually, I do, except there’s no huge story really. The first thing is that, since about when I went to high school, I’ve started regularly developing odd wounds on my calves, particularly during winter, sometimes late autumn. It starts out as a very small, slightly itchy bump, then it grows a bit and gradually starts hurting, and then it opens up and can hurt quite a lot if my calf rubs against something or when I move it the wrong way or lean on the leg too much or something, so actually my biggest problemm with it has always been that I couldn’t horse ride while I had it, and it could linger for months sometimes. When it finally disappears, it leaves a round scar. I wouldn’t have a problem with the scarring at all as I don’t expose my legs a lot anyway due to self-harm scars, and I think the ones caused by these wounds aren’t easily noticeable, but every time I get this strange sore it occurs in a different spot on my calf, and it’s not always on the same leg, so if it persists for the rest of my life, I’m curious what my legs will look like in twenty years time. 😀 The first time it happened it was really scary, it hurt like shit and my Mum told me it’s probably some sort of abscess. It turned out not to be the case, but it has been difficult to establish what it actually is. The doctor who first saw me for this assumed that perhaps it’s a staph infection and I was put on a topical antibiotic plus some other cream, but that didn’t help a whole lot, so then I was put on yet another antibiotic, which also wasn’t as helpful as we’d expect. So then I’ve also heard that it could just be some kind of allergy, or perhaps  eczema, especially given that it tends to be seasonal. Anti-allergic creams don’t do anything for me though. At some point, someone even suggested to me that if it’s healing so slowly, perhaps it could be a sign of diabetes, which scared the shit out of me because I used to be on growth hormone as a kid and apparently it increases your risk of diabetes. I don’t know if it’s only while taking it or more long-term, but it felt like   a scary idea anyway. So I tested my sugars as well but everything was fine thankfully. So far though, while I do find some topical products more helpful than others, I haven’t found anything that would actually deal with the problem completely and it looks as if while you can alleviate it, it’ll only go awayy on its own. 

   Also, some two or three years ago, one day I woke up with a strangely throbbing and warm cheek and found out I had a long, wavy line on it, but I didn’t know where and how I could have gotten it. It didn’t hurt too bad, but apparently didn’t look good and was red. My Mum assumed that Misha must have scratched me. I have a lot of minor, unintentional scratches from Misha, but like I say they’re minor and never look inflamed like that or anything, they usually don’t even hurt or only for a short while, plus even if he did scratch me like that, I’m sure I’d remember it, it would surely hurt. As it was hard to come up with another explanation, and it was winter, we assumed that perhaps it’s another manifestation of my weird skin problem, except on the cheek rather than calf, even though there weren’t many similarities between the two other than their origins being rather mysterious. Once it healed, it left a scar, and my family are joking that it’s simply because each of my siblings has a scar on their cheek, so I couldn’t be left out, even if I didn’t actually injure my cheek. Olek was bitten on the cheek by our uncle’s crazy dog as a little child, and Sofi injured her cheek while falling when she was playing with Olek, so in their cases there are clear causes. 

   How about you? 🙂 

Question of the day.

What’s the strangest/scariest thing you’ve seen in the middle of the night?

My answer:

Not really seen it but heard it, and not just in the middle of the night but for a good few months, but it started in the middle of the night. We still lived in our previous house in the countryside where I had a room in the attic. One night in summer I woke up, I think it wasn’t that scary strange thing that woke me up initially, if I remember correctly I was feeling unwell physically or something like that. In any case, I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep. Suddenly I heard a weird, faint but clear noise. I still sort of remember what it sounded like but can’t even describe it in a good way, yet I remember that the first time I heard it it reminded me of something like the noise that a sheep or a goat would make, only a lot fainter and shorter and kinda raspy. There was no way there were any such animals in our area so I found this really bizarre and a little creepy because it quite clearly sounded like it came from somewhere in my room. Since it didn’t repeat for some time and I couldn’t come up with a good idea for what it could be, I decided I must have imagined it, but I couldn’t settle back to sleep. And then I heard it again. And again, after a while. And again. And a few more times. Sometimes hearing a sound to which I can’t attribute a source can really trigger my sensory anxiety, and I think it can be potentially scary for a lot of people even when they don’t have the sensory anxiety problem. In order to be able to fall back to sleep and not freak out completely I tried to think that there certainly must be some normal, prosaic reason for why I was hearing this, I just simply didn’t know what it was. I finally managed to fall asleep, but to my fear and frustration I could still hear it. I asked my Mum what could it be, perhaps there’s something in my room, but she had no idea. She came up there, but couldn’t hear anything, so she said I must’ve been imagining it at night like I thought. Only I could still hear it at regular intervals throughout the day. And the next day, and for the rest of the summer. Eventually I sort of got used to my invisible, creepy roommate, invading my little Bibiel haven, but it was really annoying, and when I was home alone, when it was really quiet or the night time, it would still creep me out, even just the idea that no one else hears it. So what does that mean? Am I going crazy? My Mum tried hearing out for it multiple times ’cause I kept complaining about it but the malicious thing never made the noise when she was in the room, or if it did, she wouldn’t hear it because we were talking or some other noises were masking it. When I mentioned it she laughed that I must be smoking something and that it’s not fair that I won’t share with the rest of the family. 😀 Dad often had a habit of taking a nap in my room, ’cause it was the quietest, which I utterly hated because he snores, as Sofi once said, like a million of dinosaurs. Still, I was hoping that one time when he comes, before he falls asleep, or after he wakes up, he’ll hear it. Thing is, my Dad falls asleep immediately, doesn’t even need five minutes.

The summer holidays had finished and the new school year had started, so I went to school and wasn’t home for the next at least two weeks. I hoped that by the time I come back, my roommate would get bored not having anyone in there to creep out and would magically disappear just as he appeared, or maybe Mum would find him. No such luck. I remember that when I came home I guess just for a weekend, I went upstairs to go to sleep, and when I was already falling asleep, I heard it again. And that was the case for the next few months, I don’t know how long. Finally, at some point Mum did hear it. She was relaxing in my room, and I was there too, and at some point we both heard it and she was all like: “Gosh, what was that?!” Then she kept looking around the room to locate the thing, which wasn’t easy, because it wasn’t very loud and only made the noise once in a while. Finally, she found it. Under a bean bag, there lay Sofi’s old toy phone, and right when she discovered it, it pleaded guilty by making that noise again. Its battery was dying, so that was why it sounded so weird. Sofi was no longer interested in it, so the phone went to trash, which I felt evil satisfaction about. 😀

And how about you? 🙂