How is it that a perfectly decent week, one where I begin to think I am sort of in control, go all to hell so quickly?
I had been thinking that through diet and exercise and generally great virtue, I could conquer the beast that is my chronic upper right quadrant pain. Then, I got the MEGA MENSES. Sorry to be graphic here, but I have not had a period in about 10 months. At 47, I thought that I had gotten lucky and was going through menopause. I had seen my ob/gyn last year and had all my equipment checked out. It all looked fine then. So, I didn’t really think that could be the issue.
Well, low and behold, I found out this week, my female anatomy is: a. not in menopause–just screwed up. and b. I may have endometriosis or something worse so I have to get it all checked out again.
To be honest, if it were something fixable, that would be awesome. But, I know better than to get my hopes up.
But here it is, Saturday morning, and my pain is back in full force. During the night it was bad enough to keep me awake. So, I sinned against G..d and the Universe as a whole and took an extra pain pill. (This is fool hardy in several ways.) Guess what? It ain’t workin!
So, today the conversation with myself goes: “how much of this can I take?”
“ER will not fix me. It will just cost me $100 and a lot of heart ache to get pain relief.”
I need to hunker down and try and gut it out and all that jazz. I hate the fact that my mind even turns to the possibility of getting pain relief at the ER. I should know better by now. I have been there enough these last few years. As long as I don’t barf or anything, I should’t go. Pain is relative. At least that is what I tell myself. It is an unwelcome relative who wants to live with me.
No one in my family understands this. My husband knows I am hurting so I can feel him pulling away from me. He has not a bone of empathy in his entire body. So, on top of everything else. I have to consider his feelings and his dysfunction as part of the mix. The kids get very stressed if I show how much pain I am in. So, it is up to me to grin and bear it as much as I can.
I guess all of the above is why I think of this whole thing as a war. It comes complete with weapons and battles and enemies and hostages and innocent bystanders or civilians. No one chose to be in this war: we were all drafted by my faulty immune system.
There is no way to desert and go AWOL either. At least not for me.
I guess that is what my husband does: he goes AWOL when he knows he can’t fix me.
Hmmm. Well, I am off to the day. I will grin and bear it and trudge through. There is no other way to conquer the territory ahead of me. I have run for it. Duck and cover isn’t going to work today.
I am sorry that you feel that he had not a bone of empathy, and that you “have to” hide and bear it alone – that does not seem right to me. There must be another way. Have you read the second half of that book I gave you by G. Huston – about all those ways to deal with pain that are outside of regular medicine? You are not alone. If that book is not good don’t worry – I am not trying to push anything on you, but just want to support you.