~A Bitter Swallow~

  I've known pain for a long time.  I would not call us "friends", but we are definitely close acquaintances.  We know each other well.  I've always had headaches.  Sometimes they were really, really bad, but mostly they were just an annoying dull ache that would enshroud my head in a fog for days on end.  They would flare up in areas, and cause spots to dance across my vision.  Tunnel vision or "stars" are good indicators that I should just go curl up somewhere and take the day off, regardless of what I had planned. 

 Then, when I was pregnant with my second child (Monkey), I started experiencing a pain in my left shoulder.   At first I attributed it to being pregnant.  I was carrying a lot of new weight, and working full time, so I figured it was just having a toll on my muscles.  I would take warm showers and try to just relax, figuring it would get better once the baby was born. But it didn't.  Instead, it would start to radiate a shooting, cold ice fire down my arm, and into my hand.  That arm would get weak.  As time went by, it wouldn't be uncommon for me to suddenly drop whatever I was holding in that hand, because it would just simply let go without me knowing until hot coffee was spilling down my side.  

Some days it wouldn't hurt at all.  Other days it would get so bad that I couldn't turn my head.  It is like my entire left side would just lock up.  It spreads from my eye, through the side of my head, down my neck into my shoulder and all around my shoulder blade, then down my arm through my inside elbow and down into my hand.  I flex my hand often when it is acting up. 

I tried to talk to different doctors I've had about it.  Most of them just dismissed it, or handed me a prescription for Vicodin and muscle relaxers.  I was not there to get drugs, and looking back I wonder if that's what they thought I was after.  I didn't want the damn drugs, and I told them that, but how many times do they get the person in there complaining of phantom pains and telling them they really aren't there for the drugs while asking for them.  No, I didn't want drugs;  I wanted answers.  I still want answers.  One doctor sent me to a physical therapist.  I only got to go for a few weeks before I lost my insurance and had to stop due to lack of funds.  Another doctor (the only one who showed any real interest in actually figuring out the cause and not just doping me up) actually sent me in for X-rays.  If that came back with nothing he had planned on sending me for other tests, but I lost that insurance, too, and had to stop seeing him before we could do any further investigating (the x-rays showed nothing out of the ordinary). 

Then it started to spread more.  Instead of concerning itself with only my left side, sometimes it will jump over to my right side as well.  It also decided that sticking just to my limbs and shoulders was not enough, and will cause severe stiffness and aches right along my spine.  The strange thing is it does not feel like it's in the muscles, but in the bone itself.  It makes me sick to my stomach. 

I'm not sure if the migraines (headaches) are related to the pain, or if the pain is related to the migraines.  I don't always have a headache when the pain in my shoulder starts, but I will always wind up with one.  Whether the pain is a precursor or aura to the migraine, or if the stress of the pain causes the migraine, I do not know.  All I know is that I've never met a pain medication or muscle relaxer that has touched it.  Massage only works while I'm being massaged.  It's back within minutes of the massage being over. 

It seriously incapacitates me sometimes.  I can't move.  The worst part, though, is what it does to my head.  Not the painful part, but my mind.  I get so completely disoriented when the pain is bad. I cannot think, or remember.  It takes me an awful long time to process simple things, and no way will I understand anything you have to explain to me.  I can literally take two steps, and not remember where I am going or where I came from.  It's really hard if I'm trying to function at work this way.  For awhile, I would take sick leave, but it happens too frequently for me to do that anymore.  I just have to push my way through it and try to appear normal.  Sometimes I wonder if people look at me funny.  Do I look like I'm on something?  It can make me a little delirious at times.  The pain affects my brain funny.  Sometimes it's a matter of either give into it and just act goofy and let the delirium take some of the edge off, or curl into a ball in a corner somewhere and cry.  That isn't necessarily an option while I'm at work (though I will admit it has happened). 

I'm hoping to get in with a new doctor's office soon.  I've heard good things about them and I am hoping that they will help me try and figure out what is going on and how to deal with it.  I've heard people say things like pinched nerves or fibromyalgia.  Both are things that fit very closely with what I feel (from what I've read), but lack specific details (like painful touching with fibromyalgia.  I do not have sensitive spots that I know of).   It would be nice to be pain-free though.  To not have to worry about it anymore. 

  I've been having a hard time battling my depression lately.  It's been rearing and roaring so loudly that I can barely hear anything else.  I've tried to smile through it, to tell myself that all of these painful things that I notice are just a phantom of the depression; a trick to lure me into its dark and waiting grip.  I've spent months working on myself- inside and out.  I've taken on healthier eating habits, and starting paying more attention to getting exercise.  Neither are to the extreme.  I still indulge in a chocolate chip cookie or two when my daughter makes them, and I spend my evenings and weekends more idle than I probably technically "should", but I am not depriving myself of things I "enjoy".  I make myself smile.  I focus on keeping the muscles of my face relaxed, especially my jaw.  I make sure to keep my shoulders relaxed, too.   I smile, and tell myself I deserve to smile. 

  But as of late, it feels like such a horrible lie.  I can't help but notice these painful things, because they are true.  They aren't a figment of some delusional mental disease that strives to make me feel bad.   They simply are. 

  There are times that I wish I could just run away.  There are days when I wish my children were still little, so I could just pack up a couple of suitcases, hop on a train, and just go somewhere where no one knows me and I don't know anyone.   Of course, even if my kids were little, I couldn't go.  I couldn't do that to them.  It is a nice fantasy, but nothing more.  I could never take them away from their father like that.  I couldn't let my hang-ups and past (present) failures pull them away from their lives and affect them suchly.  It would only cause them to hate me, and move in with their father.  Then I would lose them, too, and what would I have left to live for?  They are, by all means, my life support.  I would be lost without them.  Meaningless and purposeless.  They are why I live.

  But, that life still feels marred.  Irreparably damaged.  I have these giant parasites living within me, eating away at my insides.  They have been feeding for so long that I don't imagine there is much left-  only that sustenance that my children being near me gives me.  I fear that soon they will begin to worm their way through my skin, letting the world see the gaping sores that fill my being.  They will fester and ooze, infected and decaying. 

 
  I try to focus on doing things that I enjoy:  writing, crafting, baking...  But none of these feel fun anymore.  I have no desire to do them.  No motivation.  Instead, I prefer to just hide withing the pages of a book or the pixilated lives of a game; to escape into some other world.  I don't want to socialize anymore. I've tried that.  I've tried putting myself out there- trying to include myself in the lives of those I love, only to be overlooked; forgotten.  Or, even worse, ignored.   They don't want me there. I can see that.  I can only be shunned for so long before I wisen up and get the point.  It makes me feel so stupid.  So stupid. 

    
It is hard to feel invisible. To feel forgotten and discarded. An oversight; an afterthought.


I will continue to put on a happy face.  To hide the inner demon from showing itself in public.  To protect my kids, and to function in society.  But I have decided to stop trying to put myself out there.  To practically beg for attention and inclusion.  I can't live that lie.  Trying is only making it more obvious to me, and that is just too hard... the cuts too deep.   I won't do that anymore. 

I like monsters.  So I decided to make one.  =)

Just thought you'd like to meet him!  He also got me to use my sewing machine... for real!!  =) 

Yay, Buddy!