Accepting Pain…

I often get asked how I deal with the physical pain associated with my illness. Being highly allergic to opioid pain killers, my options are very limited. The pain med that I do rely on can only be taken sporadically given the side effect of sometimes severe stomach distress.

Shortly before my nurse arrived today, I came across an online article about the abuse of pain medications. Although that’s not a concern of mine, there was a quote that caught my attention.

“Learning how to cope with pain can be more empowering for patients than trying to find a pill to completely eliminate it” coming from Dr. Mitchell Katz, director of  the Los Angeles County health department.

During her visit today, my nurse asked if I’d like her to once again raise the issue of my pain management with my doctors in hopes of finding something more effective.

I shared the gist of the article with my nurse, and explained how the quote I’d found quite nicely summarized how I felt about my pain management strategy. It’s highly unlikely that we’ll find anything to eradicate my pain completely, but it’s comforting to know that I can relieve it to some degree when it becomes too much for me to bear. Which happens more frequently as the weeks go on; you might accurately surmise that I have a very unhappy stomach to match.

Not having an expectation of complete pain relief is what gets me through my days and nights, I just didn’t see it as clearly as that until today when I read the article. I think I’d be struggling far more emotionally with this illness if I didn’t accept there there will be zero days in my future without pain. I just hope to have have some days with less severe pain than others.

This philosophy is one that has been in the background throughout my life. I don’t know anyone that gets through a lifetime without hardship. It makes the good times all that much sweeter. I suspect that’s been my secret to finding happiness in the spaces between the challenges. Accepting that no life is without battles and tears.

When my husband first blindsided me with the news that he was leaving me, he said that 95% of our life together was great – but the 5% of unhappiness he was experiencing was more than he was willing to go forward with. He expressed that he deserved to be unabashedly happy all of the time with a partner, and was going to leave me in order to find someone who could provide him that desired state of absolute and utter happiness. Over the coming weeks and months, the ratios changed – in his version of our history he apparently had very rarely experienced happiness and that became his truth. I disagreed, but it really didn’t matter what I had thought in the matter. A decision had been reached without me.

What I do accept as my truth now is that a certain percentage of my week is spent in moderate physical pain, some at higher levels. There are discussions with my medical and support teams as to how we will proceed as the pain ratios change for the worse. We’re together creating a plan with open and honest communication.

I leave you with another quote that I came upon today, from the #OolaSeeker Twitter feed.

“A lot of people end up unhappy because they made permanent decisions on temporary emotions”. There will be no rash major decisions in my future, only ones that have been given lengthy consideration and debate, of that I can assure you.