Tag Archives for thoughts

Gratitude and Creativity: We Evolve

Even before the arrival of my illness, sleep was a difficult thing for me. Insomnia and I are old friends, but having to cope with it while dealing with high levels of pain is not an easy thing. When I was working, I used to take advantage of the times I couldn’t sleep by catching up on or completing work tasks early. In some ways it seemed like a blessing to be so productive, but of course there were the drawbacks of struggling to get out of bed many mornings and having to caffeinate myself to get my brain started and to stay alert sometimes later in the day.

When I can’t sleep now, I don’t feel productive, I feel restless, which makes my mind bounce all over the place during the longest stretches of the night. Sometimes I watch TV shows or movies to make the time pass more quickly. Other times I spend hours online poring over pages of articles, news, videos, and interesting writing others post here. Thankfully, many of the things people post here positively occupy my thoughts and lead to me being creative, which feels so much better than being productive.

In the dark, early hours of Thursday morning, a poem I found on Dave Kavanagh’s site, which he titled ‘Dark Eyed Woman’ sparked some creativity to help me pass the time. I was fortunate to engage with him through the comment section of his site and part of our exchange calmed the restlessness of my thoughts enough for me to write some poetry. In this respect – my creativity being sparked so I can write – I still see insomnia as a blessing sometimes. However, I know that sleep is the bigger blessing I need so I can better manage my illness.

We Evolve

 

Gratitude and Creativity: Death Comes

I was in a very dark mood yesterday because of the intensity of my pain. Unable to sleep – as I often am – last night I went searching through the WordPress community for interesting things to read. Sometimes I search through the list of blogs I follow in the Reader, while at other times I randomly select a tag to see what others are writing about under different topics. Last night, or early this morning, I chose to search under the tag ‘death’ because I had attached it to yesterday’s post.

What I found wasn’t as morbid or bleak as one might expect. Not that I didn’t find some heartbreaking posts, but I also found inspirational and philosophical writing from many members of the community. One of the posts I read was about an excerpt of a letter from Pier Giorgio Frassati a beatified early twentieth century Italian Catholic social activist. The letter was in response to a friend who had not heard from him for a long while, who wrote to him asking if he was dead. In his response Frassati wrote, “Dead – what does this word mean?”

He then details definitions of death for his friend, and goes on to say, “But if we’re talking about the word in its true essence, then sadly not only am I dead, but already resuscitated a number of times only – alas! to die again.” The post I read this in came from the site Contemplative in the Mud, whose author seemed to have had a bit of a day herself/himself, or at least was introspective about the ups and downs of life. The nice thing for me, after reading this post, was that it opened me up to write some poetry in the early morning hours, which distracted me, at least for a little while, from my pain.

 

Death Comes

 

Can Pain Kill You?

Can pain kill you? According to the responses from my Google search, yes, it can.

Can Pain Kill You

Some days, like today, I feel like my pain might kill me. I know that might sound over-the-top, but if you’ve never experienced debilitating pain, there’s no other way for me to describe it. When I used to get frequent blinding migraines or my monthly menstrual cramps made it impossible for me to get out of bed, I always took comfort in knowing that those pains would eventually end. Now, with this pain, there is never any relief. There is no day on the calendar or time frame after taking medication that I can look forward to because they mean there will be an end to the pain threatening to split my skull open or implode my reproductive organs. The pain radiating from deep in the right side of my pelvis, out towards both hips, down both legs, and up my back has no schedule or half-life to which I can look forward in anticipation of relief.

Some days, like today, the pain is so unbearable; walking, standing, or even sitting still, hurt so badly I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know what to do with this anxious energy racing through me that probably adds to the frenetic activity within my nervous system and amps up the pain. I don’t know how to make myself comfortable when I sit because no surface can ever be soft enough against my aching tender skin. While just the thought of trying to rub and massage the hurting parts of myself makes me cringe and nauseated to the point of wanting to vomit.

If the pain, like the type of pain I feel, can kill a person by pushing them to suicide, I can understand why. I’m not, by any means, contemplating ending my life, but I’m uncertain about how long – it’s been three years already – I can live like this not knowing when or if I will get any pain relief. How long can I continue to accept being characterized as a “mystery patient” by my doctors who can’t pinpoint why my body is still reacting, to a growth that is no longer in my pelvis, before it becomes too much to bear? A psychological episode most likely will not be what brings my life to its end. It could very well be the stress of constant pain on my body that makes my blood pressure boil over, causing a stroke, or my blood could become poisoned by the copious amount of opioid pain medications I take, leading my organs to start to fail. Que sera sera…

I know none of this is helpful or optimistic, but this is where my pain sends my mind on days like today when I hurt so badly I don’t know what to do with myself.