The more days I waste away in hospital, it seems worse news come to me, and so I’ve lost faith in the waiting game for a good outcome. To know that the phrase people use for comfort; _it gets better_- to know that everything simply crumbles into a tumultuous rockfall for me from now until my death has already thrown me into a deep and unforgiving pit.

I know that, once you begin experiencing the symptoms of rabies, there is no turning back. Yesterday, it was itchiness that seemed to poke its way out of my skin in thousands of needles. If you’ve ever been bitten by a mosquito, you’ll be disgusted to know that this feeling is ten times as worse. It’s no better today, but I’ve come to terms with it at the very least.

Something else I felt today aswell as itching was the painful dizziness that came to me after lunch. It was as if I did not know who I was, where I was and why I existed. I truly think that dementia would be the constant state of what horrid confusion I experienced at that moment. Even now, I feel unsure if what I am writing makes any sense; instead, my mind is occupied with none and a million things at once, each little thought a vivid ghost from a recent nightmare coming back to haunt me. And so I wonder, _could it be that I am guilty of something I do not remember? Is that why I am being hunted down?_

Unlike drugs, there are no momentary flights of bliss that accompany these bouts of unease.

When I first got my diagnosis, I heard from the doctor that I would soon enough experience an intense fear of water; the factor that will ultimately drive my death.

The thought sounds utterly ridiculous to me.

You cannot develop a phobia. I believe that you are born with it and you discover it whenever you encounter it. I do wonder, however, if what the doctor says is right- if I am afraid of even the basic essentials of life, how will I be acting by then? Perhaps I will not even know myself. Perhaps I will become the rabid animal that approached me in my sleep.

Until then, I can stay peacefully (not really) unaware of what will be.

Visiting hours are over now, but I’ll call my mum to see if she is coming tomorrow.

I bet you’re reading, Cassie. I love you lots. I hope you’re keeping poncho entertained.

_23rd July, 2001_

Reed