Category Archives for Mental Health

In The Not So Still Night

In the early hours of this morning – when I woke up for maybe the third time in what should have been a full night’s sleep – the strangest questions crept into my half-drowsy mind: What if the high dose of pain medication I’ve been taking since my surgery is the dose I should have taken all along? What if I’ve been looking at this all wrong? What if I kept landing in the emergency room as often as I did before was because I wasn’t prescribed the correct level of pain medication? After all, the doctors at the pain clinic had expressed a fear of not being able to manage my post-surgery pain if they prescribed a higher dose of pain medications before my surgery.

That had been the point of the nerve block – to give me more pain relief without prescribing more oral opioid pain medications. But what if my nervous system is so damaged by whatever underlying illness caused the pain to begin with that I needed more pain medication or possibly a different kind to manage my pain? Instead of feeling this high level of anxiety about taking more pain medication, shouldn’t I think about how many times in the past two years I landed in the emergency room for extra pain relief or the countless sleepless nights I had because of the pain? Shouldn’t I feel more positive that the pain specialists recognize the need for better treatment for me?

I just stopped writing and thought about those things for a moment. I haven’t landed in the emergency room since surgery, but I’m still having the sleepless nights because of pain even with the higher dose of pain medications. I still can’t travel in a vehicle without feeling pain afterward that forces me to rest to recover from what shouldn’t be an ordeal; and walking any significant distance is out of the question. Unfortunately, stopping to think raised more questions. The main ones being, what if pain medication isn’t the answer for me or what if I need an alternative method of pain management that hasn’t been tried yet? And worst of all what if I am as unusual a case as they think that doesn’t come with a straightforward cure.

So why am I awake in the wee hours of the morning ruminating over these torturous questions? Do I or don’t I need more pain medication? Should I have had this higher dose sooner? How long should I take it at this high dose? Should I focus on lowering the dose – if the higher is what I need – so significantly so soon after surgery, and if not, how much harm will extended use cause me?

How many more days and nights will I wake to find these types of questions pouring out of me in small trickles or gushing as if busting through a dam? Maybe what’s doing more harm is my inability to just allow myself to be sick and count on my body to do what it needs to do to heal itself, instead of forcing my mind to hold all my pain.

Kim Carnes – Crazy In the Night

The Pain in Fragile Human Connections

Life has a way of reminding us of how fragile each of us and each relationship connecting us can be. As I’m working through my recovery from surgery and ongoing chronic pain, I’m trying to support a younger cousin to hold her life together while it disintegrates in front of her. She’s pregnant with her third child and her partner walked out on her and their two young children, who are five and two, days after her doctor ordered her on bed rest. From the sounds, and looks of things, he’s been planning to leave for some time but failed to mention it to my cousin who is now eight months pregnant.

As much as I’ve seen and experienced in my life, this shocks me, and I don’t understand – even with my parents’ history – how someone can walk away from his or her young, and unborn, children. I don’t understand how one person can believe they have the right to make such a significant decision knowing it will negatively affect the lives of four other people and move on with their life without missing a beat. I don’t understand what he tells himself when he chooses not to answer his phone when my cousin calls him in the middle of the night because she might need something for one of their children or she might be experiencing severe cramping, or be in labour – premature or active. I don’t understand how he can cut himself off emotionally from having any interest in knowing how the child she is carrying in her belly is thriving – or not. He doesn’t attend her prenatal appointments, he doesn’t ask about test results, he doesn’t ask about her pain or if she’s resting and he never asks if she’s eating well, or if she needs help caring for their other children.

I know that no relationship is perfect – and I certainly don’t believe my cousin has no fault in the breakdown of this one – but I don’t understand how he could choose now to leave. What did he tell his five-year old daughter when she asked where he was going as he packed his things? How does it feel not to be there when his children wake up in the morning and when they go to sleep, when he has been there every day of their lives since they can remember? How did it feel when he walked out the door leaving the heavily pregnant mother of his children behind?

I’ve been speaking to my cousin every day since this crisis erupted in her life a few weeks ago. I don’t believe the pain I’m feeling because of my illness is anywhere near as severe as the pain she’s feeling from the breakdown of her family. To ease my pain I can take pain medication but there is nothing I can offer her to reduce her pain. She speaks of her heart breaking. I can offer no cure, but because I’ve had my heart broken, I know the only balm that will give her pain relief, and possibly heal the rupture, is time.

I also know I must show her that our connection is not fragile. However, the only way my fragile, pained body can show that is with open ears and open heart, and I hope that’s enough to help keep her whole and strong.

 

The Five Stairsteps – O-O-H Child

Power of Attorney and Final Wishes

This all feels so morbid. I just finished assigning my Power of Attorney and writing a letter that details my final wishes. I haven’t done these things because I don’t expect to survive my upcoming surgery – to be clear, I expect nothing less. I’ve done them because I can no longer escape the reality of my mortality. Even though I knew the time would arrive when I would need to do them, I didn’t think it would be so soon. Not having children has granted me the freedom to not look too closely at the “what ifs” and “what coulds” of the future near or far, until now.

My friend J will be one of two people who can make decisions about what can or cannot happen if things don’t go well on Tuesday. It’s a lot of responsibility, I know, but I trust her with my life and I trust that she will follow my wishes without hesitation. We talked about everything in detail yesterday. Until yesterday, she had a general understanding of how I want things handled, but now there are no questions. I will have to have the same conversation with the other person tomorrow or Monday.

I can’t fully articulate all of what I’m feeling right now. However, putting things in writing released a bit of the pressure and stress I’ve been feeling the past few weeks. Maybe this will help me sleep better tonight.

 

Queen – Under Pressure