The Christmas cards are stacked against me

I’m not feeling the holiday spirit this year. Maybe it’s because the hospital almost killed me last month and still gifted me a $2k bill. Maybe it’s because my head is a ticking CSF leak time bomb and my neurologist says I will probably need brain surgery. Maybe it’s because my right kidney is still angry from last month’s contrast dye and throws a tantrum every time I drink water.

Or maybe it’s because Shutterfly sent me envelopes that smell like butt.

For the past decade, I’ve sent at least 50 Christmas cards each year. In the hospital, I swore I was taking this year off. However, a week later, I was invited to participate in a holiday card exchange for people with mast cell disease. I’m a sucker for fellow MCAS warriors, so I loaded up on steroids, put sweaters on my dogs, and trekked outside in the snow. The photos were adorable, so I ended up ordering 50 cards per usual.

As soon as my cards arrived in the mail, I set up my workshop: pens, stickers, and stamps. I was admiring my new cards, when it hit me. Not a chemical smell, nor a poop smell, but a foul butt smell. I put an envelope to my nose, and one whiff confirmed these envelopes had been stored in a sweaty butt warehouse for the past year. Unfortunately, by the time I moved them outside, my lungs were burning.

The only thing worse than getting sick from your own Christmas cards is getting all your chronically ill friends sick from your Christmas cards. I want to be known in the MCAS community as a great blogger, not the Christmas card killer. Again, I have ordered cards for over a decade, and I’ve never had this problem. Why this year?

Not even the Minnesota winter air could refresh the butt envelopes sitting on my patio. I waited two weeks for Shutterfly to send replacement envelopes. In past years, I would have been more patient. However, as a chronically ill person, I cannot crank out cards like I used to. Everything takes longer.

I considered sending the butt envelopes to my friends and family without mast cell disease anyway. I could just add “This is what my 2018 smelled like. Merry Christmas!” However, I usually I can smell things normal people can’t. So, my message would probably add further confusion and evidence that I am the most awkward person in their life.

As the Christmas deadline grew near, the pressure to finish my cards and my crabbiness increased. I began publicly proclaiming everyone would be receiving scent free deodorant for Christmas, because I am sick of trying and suffocating.

I was at the precipice of a Grinch-like meltdown, when I began receiving cards in my mailbox. Half of the cards came from cities I’ve never heard of, homes of other mast cell warriors. One of the cards contained a sticker that read, “Thank you for being.”

My shrunken kidney, two centimeters too small, did not grow when I read that, but I did feel a moment of comfort. The holidays have become painful reminders that everything is difficult or impossible for me: shopping, decorating, eating; socializing. The sticker gently reminded me I still matter, even if I can’t send Christmas cards on time anymore.

I considered putting an end to my shopping stress by just giving everyone on my list one of these stickers for Christmas. Then they would probably wish I had given them scent free deodorant. Holiday expectations are ridiculous.