Tag Archives for thoughts

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

Think

It’s been very hard spending so much time alone while being so severely ill.

I’ve known since I was very young that I think a lot. Actually, some would say that I think too much. I might be inclined to agree.

My thoughts have become very circular in some difficult moments: is my illness a boomerang of bad karmic energy that I deserve as payment for something terrible I did in the past; how much longer can I possibly live like this; what if the doctors can’t “fix me”; and how can I possibly continue to do this alone?

These thoughts take me dangerously close to the edges of a rat hole I know it’s possible for me to fall into under the right circumstances. I have to work hard to keep my mental health healthy and some days I just barely come out on top. Some days it feels like it would be easier to give in, but the choice I make instead is to not fight against my thoughts and feelings so hard because it adds to my physical pain and causes me additional psychological and emotional pain.

I’m trying, instead of thinking so much, to accept this challenging experience for what it is. At the very least, I don’t blame myself for being sick anymore. At the beginning of all this, as irrational as I knew it was, I tried to figure out what I could have done to avoid getting sick. Even after I learned that my illness most likely resulted from a rare congenital condition that could never be prevented. I try not to wish my illness and the accompanying excruciating pain away because it requires a significant investment of my energy. Energy that I need to function at the most basic level some days. I also try not to blame anyone else– not even the doctors who misdiagnosed me at the start of all this.

Hardest of all, I try to be present with the pain. Being present means: noticing how the pain is changing my body and my mind; moving my body in ways that don’t aggravate my pain– not always successfully; and moving slowly, carefully and deliberately in every physical action I make so I don’t drop things or drop myself– again. It also means I try not to feel guilt when after doing very little I’m so exhausted I need to nap in the middle of the morning, afternoon and/or evening– like I did for about three hours in the middle of writing this entry.

The final thing is something I’ve always done but I work at even harder now. I work at being grateful for the people who love and support me. One of the ways I do it may not, at first glance, seem like gratitude but I work at allowing them to help me because I’ve never been good at asking for or accepting help. And I need help now like never before– even if I can’t always admit to it. But I can admit that each time I reach out to someone I can feel a shift in myself and I feel a little less alone.

 

Today I leave you with some thoughts from the Queen of Soul,
Aretha Franklin – Think [1968]