Making notes for this post I wasn’t even sure if I would ever publish it…it’s not a ‘happy’ topic, but it’s part of who I am, right, so why not?! I promise it will not be a depressive or even too long post!
Just to fill in the blanks for those who do not know me, or those who didn’t know that part of me yet: I have been a chronic back pain sufferer for more than thirty years now after several surgeries between the age of 14 and 19. I take tons of medication daily, have regular treatments in pain clinic and stopped working years ago as physically no longer manageable though I left many tears for giving up my job, and still do.
End of story right, take your meds, physio once in a while, lots of resting, respecting the boundaries…oooh I wish it was that simple!
I have a lot of radiating pains, to my legs, to my arms and neck and sometimes to my head leading to migraine. I call them my ‘attacks’: they vary in severeness and in duration, from a few hours to two days. They come on top of the usual daily pains I have and to which I have grown accustomed. They start at random, not triggered by anything specific, though I should not start vacuum cleaning the whole house😉, I can only do one room, or cleaning windows, etc,…things I have all learnt to work around or find other solutions for.
My days are planned based on how I feel, after doing groceries I rest, I sometimes leave them downstairs to unpack half an hour later because I need to lie down first. When cooking dinner I start my preparation in the afternoon so I can rest before doing the actual cooking, that means if dinner is something more elaborate than just cooking pasta! I split up nearly every activity, so I can rest in between. When having a party or invitation by friends or family we try to avoid two evenings in a row, as I know that is asking for trouble. When I know in advance we go out, the schedule is extra cleared the days in advance and resting is doubled. Luckily I have two lovely, understanding men in my life and here in the house helping me out, my husband and son, I honestly would not know what I would do or who I would be in all this without them! I feel blessed with the lovely friends, family and neighbours stopping by concerned and offering their help, so warms the heart!
Though I have learnt these attacks don’t last, every single time they knock me out big time, it’s not only my body that crashes, it’s a mental thing too and takes time and a lot of inner power to reboot every time again, over and over again. Sometimes I’m lucky and I am only overrun by such an attack once every two weeks, sometimes it’s two in one week!
During those attacks, depending on their severeness, visualisation usually helps me…oooh the beaches I’ve been on, and mountain streams, feet in the splashing water, or recalling happy memories from past holidays…I have a happy song too that goes over and over in my head: Katrina and the Waves’ Walking on Sunshine😀how bizarre is that, but it helps…
The most difficult thing still is to let go: letting go of the plans made for that day or evening, my social world has already been reduced and changed, so I do want to hold on and cherish the people and the things I still have or can do but on the attack days I have no choice: it’s letting go, hoping for better hours, days to come, finding that inner strength to reboot again and focus on the many things I can still enjoy like cooking and baking, reading, gardening, photography, holiday planning and dreaming, making new friends, so once I’m up and running again, well, figuratively, don’t it feel good!
Ingrid
Xxx
The Back Road Chronicles 