Gratitude and Creativity: How I’m Healing

One of the best things I’ve ever done for myself is start my art/gratitude journal. Starting this journal connected me to my quiet self and gave me a tool to help heal myself. Since coming out of surgery – probably the second day after – I started drawing and colouring. With drawing and colouring, I was able to tune out a lot of my pain, other patients, and the busyness of the medical staff and support staff around me.

The first things I made while I was in the hospital contain a loving kindness meditation mantra that I learned many years ago in a mindfulness meditation course. The mantra is

May I live in safety
May I be happy
May I be healthy
May I live my life with ease

I often say this mantra when I feel anxiety. It helps to calm and ground me. Drawing it helped me feel less anxious about all the things that were happening to me in the first few days of my recovery. Things like the drastic drop in my blood pressure (it fell to 60/45), the unbearable pain flare when they removed my epidural, then my blood pressure spiking in response to the pain, and starting to walk again, which was incredibly painful. It was all very intense, so I needed something to keep me calm; as the doctors and nurses did their jobs to get my vitals back within normal ranges and prepare me to go home.

I’m glad I had the forethought to pack my art/gratitude journal, my Zentangle notebook, a new sketchbook, coloured pencils, and markers in my suitcase. I’m glad I’ve found things I can do, even under the fog of pain medication, that relax and calm me while giving me a creative outlet. The things that so many people believe are meant only for children have become significant tools for coping with my pain, and they are contributing to my healing.

 

Celebrating Old Friendships

Today is my friend F’s 50th birthday, or as she has decided to name it her ‘Second 40th’. Whichever one it is, I’m happy that I’ve known her for many of those years. The testament to our friendship is that even when we haven’t been in touch for ages as soon as we make contact we still feel connected and are able to pick up where we left off as if we’d only seen each other days before. We have a comfort with each other that we know isn’t easy to find, but we also understand exists because we value each other and know that maintaining good friendships takes work.

When F learned about my illness, she was devastated. She immediately wanted to know what she could do to help me. Then she rethought her question and said she shouldn’t be asking she should just be showing up at my home to do what I might need done. She said that as my friend that’s what anyone should do. Thankfully, I have others in my life that believe the same thing she does.

This summer F lost her mother. She was a lovely woman. She often invited me to their home for dinner where she regaled us with tales of her youth, gave us sage advice, and served wonderful pies. I wasn’t able to attend the funeral, but I was able to console F in conversation. We both cried for the loss of her mother, and were able to find comfort in shared memories. During that conversation, even under such sad circumstances, we were happy, to be together because of our friendship.

I’m one of a handful of people invited to celebrate F’s ‘Second 40th’ this coming Saturday. I’ve been resting this week with the hope that my pain will be manageable enough so I’ll at least be able to show up to the restaurant to give her a hug. If I can’t make it, I know she’ll understand. I feel blessed that F is my friend and I am happy to be part of this celebration of her life.

 

TLC – What About Your Friends

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