Tag Archives for illness

Gratitude and Creativity: Sometimes I Forget

Sometimes I forget how blessed I am because my body is always feeling pain. However, I was reminded of my blessings yesterday when my cousin brought her three children to see me because I was hurting too much to go to her home to visit for a few days. I was so thrilled to see the children, especially the new baby who I watched come into the world thirteen days ago. The two older children burst into my home with so much life energy when I opened the door that they almost knocked me off my feet. They were so happy to see me it filled my heart. They greeted me with hugs, huge smiles, and the bright sounds of honest childhood laughter that hides nothing, as they asked me in turns to help them unzip jackets and remove shoes.

The new baby was napping in his carrier seat under soft, warm blankets. He was quiet and unmoving; until his mother gave me the go ahead to disturb his peace, and I took him out of his cozy corner of the world. When I picked him up he wiggled in my arms like a worm – he might have gained the misfortune of me using the word ‘worm’ as an endearment toward him for the rest of his life. He finally settled in my arms, almost weightless – he weighs just seven pounds now – and slid back into sleep as I held him against my chest. I had him in my arms or laying in my lap for most of the afternoon, with the only exception being when he woke up in search of his mother’s breast. It was a wonderful feeling.

I occupied the older children with a jumbo box of crayons, paper, and a children’s television channel that made their mother cringe. I’ve never been a parent so I don’t mind a few hours of children’s shows full of mindless rhyming songs and lessons on counting and primary colours. They were also easy to please with snacks that were thankfully lacking in sugar – bowls full of Cheerios™, sliced vegetables, and orange juice. What I couldn’t provide, they filled in with their imaginations. When they went home, my place was loudly quiet and still, but I felt full. I felt happy.

Today, I’m still feeling wisps of that happiness. But as I sat down to write, I realized I haven’t written anything in my art/gratitude journal in a few weeks. Instead of writing a new entry, I decided to flip through the pages of things I wrote about being grateful for in recent months. On the bottom of the page from my second entry back in April, I wrote a poem. That’s what I’m grateful for today. Not that specific poem; I’m grateful that I started writing again. Whether here or in that journal, writing is making my life with chronic pain a little easier to bear and helping me to make room for other things, happy things, in my life.

Still, sometimes I forget. What I’m hoping is that in the future I work at having more days like today where I look for ways to hold on to the joy and happiness that my cousin’s children brought to life in me yesterday.

Line To My Life

 

Pain Clinic #7: Trying Alternative Pain Treatments

I had my third appointment at the pain clinic since having surgery in August. Each appointment I have makes me aware of how fortunate I am to have access to such an incredible resource. My pain may not be gone, but I have specialists working to support me and trying to find the root cause – and hopefully the cure – of my pain. My primary doctor at the pain clinic is a wonderfully compassionate woman who is open to exploring as many alternative treatments as possible to treat my pain.

During this appointment, we reviewed my pain medications. I’m still taking a considerably higher dose of the opioid pain medications than I was before surgery, but I’ve been trying to decrease the doses over the past few months. I’m keeping a daily log detailing how much I take throughout each day. My pain specialist encouraged me to continue keeping this log because it’s helping to identify trends in my pain. I can pinpoint when I have a pain flare up and what activities may cause it, and whether I need to increase the doses of my pain medications. To support these trends she wrote me prescriptions for each of my pain medications with quantities large enough for me to increase or decrease my doses as my pain dictates.

Acupuncture was the next thing we discussed. My pain specialist is a trained acupuncturist. By all accounts, she’s highly skilled. Knowing that as a medical doctor – she’s an anesthesiologist – she has a holistic approach to treating pain makes me feel encouraged. One of my next appointments with her will be in the treatment centre of the pain clinic – where I had my nerve block  – for acupuncture. Her hope is that acupuncture treatments will help to reduce my pain and my need for such high doses of pain medications. My hope is that the treatments will deliver those results, and much more.

We also talked about the Mindfulness-Based Chronic Pain Management (MBCPMTM) program offered at the same hospital as the pain clinic. The program teaches patients “how to manage their chronic pain and illness through Mindfulness and meditation practice, and better lifestyle skills.” It’s based on the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program (MBSR) originated by Jon Kabat-Zinn. My pain specialist is referring me to the program to give me another option for managing my pain. The idea for me to try this program originated with my therapist because our therapy sessions include mindfulness practices. My pain specialist believes this program will be a beneficial addition to the practices I’m already including in my life to cope with my pain. I believe, whatever the outcomes, I have an incredible support system that keeps working to find solutions to get me pain-free.

 

Third Eye Blind – Semi-Charmed Life

 

Gratitude and Creativity: Truth and Thought

It absolutely sucks when you think you’re having a good day and then out of nowhere you start to cry. Since becoming ill, that happens to me more often than I like to admit. Yesterday was one of those days. I was happily moving through my day when the tears started coming. I’m not sure what triggered them, but if I had to guess, I would say it was my pain. When I woke up yesterday I was feeling what I consider good from a pain perspective, but as the day continued, my pain got worse. Usually that wouldn’t make me cry, but yesterday it felt like there was no one I could tell about my feelings. That caused me to feel overwhelming sadness.

Even though my friends and family are always checking in with me to see how I’m doing, I don’t always feel I can tell them about the extent of my moods – or my pain. I tend to save most of the low feelings and troubling thoughts for my therapist, because I sometimes think that it’s easier not to have everyone worried about me all the time. As much as I appreciate it, I don’t find it comforting to have people constantly concerned about me. I don’t like answering the same questions repeatedly and feeling the need to reassure everyone that I’m doing just fine, especially when I’m not. The moment I tell someone about a bad day, whether my pain or my mood is the cause, they go into “what can I do to make it better” mode; when there is nothing they can do to make it better.

A prime example is me bursting into tears and not being able to explain why. If I told anyone about that, the worry would be immediate and I would feel bad about being the reason for that worry. The interesting thing is I know that if things were reversed, I would try to do whatever I could to make things better for someone I cared for.

Thankfully, I was able to express what I was feeling in poetry because of a timely silent share post, from my friend Bert, that I read yesterday morning.

 

Truth and Thought