Today hasn't been a great day.
It hasn't been excruciatingly awful or anything... Just complicated and painful.
I'm not sure if I am simply recuperating still from singing on Friday, if I am PMSing, or if I maybe caught some bug - and it doesn't really matter what's caused it, I am unwell.
That general achy unwell feeling. That coating in the back of the throat that kind of feels like indigestion, but not quite. That headache that feels as though it's on the verge of turning into a migraine if I squint too long, stare at a phone too long, read too long.... That feverish body feeling waking up from a nap that I felt like I needed, but then made everything worse. Nausea... But not the kind where I know I'll eventually vomit. It's the kind that I don't know what to do to make it better. My anti-nausea meds aren't working... I tried fresh air, I tried cold compresses, I tried food, I tried no food later on, I tried tea, orange juice, even incense and essential oils in my oil diffuser, I did a yoga session... Nothing is helping today.
This is the main problem with these types of chronic illnesses. These days. The days where nothing really works - at all. Sometimes you just have to 'give up' and accept that you are going to feel like shit. It doesn't matter what I do, I am going to feel AWFUL. I have to just ride it out.
I try and find ways to help the pain dissipate, even for a little while.
First I start with properly taking my medication at the exact time that I need to. Most days I try and hold off until I really need them... But today, I needed to make sure that everything was exactly when my medication alarms went off. I have to pick and choose exactly which ones I can, and should, be taking more of, and which ones I can let up on.
For instance - I have to take care to take Gravol and Ondansetron at specific intervals. I want to make sure that I am getting the maximum benefit without overdosing. The same goes with Tylenol #4 and Robaxacet. Because they each have 500mg of acetaminophen, I have to be careful how much I take. Too much codeine will cause other unwanted symptoms, but the robaxacet doesn't attack certain pains as well. Then there are the medications that make me drowsy. If I don't eat enough, they get my world spinning and don't allow me to function properly. If I eat too much, they have virtually no beneficial effect.
All of these medications are hard on the stomach, so I have to decide when the headache/migraine, overall pain, nausea, feverish feeling, sweats, and aches are enough for me to accept some major stomach pain for minor relief of other pains.
Every person with any kind of pain or illness has to make these choices on a daily basis. What can I handle? What do I have to sacrifice in order for a PORTION of me to feel just a little bit better?
I can't battle everything. I cannot fight every single thing at once. I basically have to take turns feeling certain pains... Try and go through a cycle so that I get a bit of a break from one by feeling another more intensely.
I don't know if I have explained this well enough... I am not sure if you would ever be able to understand unless you yourself experience it... But I am also imploring you not to judge those that do go through it.
It seems ridiculous to voluntarily put myself through some excruciating stomach pain just to have a little bit less of a headache, right? Or to be mind-blowingly itchy everywhere from codeine just to get a minor amount of dissipated pain. I mean... Why would someone voluntarily take a medication that makes other symptoms worse? I hope that this explanation helped you understand why.
We are just trying to survive. I CAN'T fight everything at once.
Alright, enough of the heavy.
There is a piece of imagery that I use a lot. I first learned it through a naturopathic doctor during an acupuncture session. It wasn't exactly meant to do what it has done - it was more a way of exploring where my energy was blocked - but it ended up providing me with a helpful routine of imagery to help - however small - with pain.
I start by lying on my back, either on my bed or on my yoga mat, palms up, eyes closed. I visualize a gold ball descending and going straight through my chest inside, and then exploding. Not in a painful way. It shatters into a million floating gold speckles (I imagine them being sparkly - because sparkly things are awesome). I visualize these floating golden specs traveling all through my body... Slowly. And in each area of pain, the speckles run into another smaller golden ball - each ball is a source of pain. Today the most pain I have had has been my headaches. So - about twenty minutes after taking my Tylenol #4, I did this. I imagined that smaller golden ball shattering in my head. It symbolizes the pain. The pain shattering and dissipating and turning into smaller golden (sparkly) flecks that spread throughout my body instead of being intensely contained in one particular golden ball.
If I can manage it, I visualize all of these flecks traveling to my extremities and soaring out of my fingertips, my toes, the top of my head... I imagine that pain not only shattering into millions of pieces, but then disappearing.
It offers me a way to focus on my pain and imagine it lessening. The mind can do amazing things - and when I pair the visualization with the medications that help, it seems to have the best effect.
Is my pain gone? Haha.
Is it actually lessened? Does it matter?
Whatever offers me comfort - scientific or not - helps. Even if it helps nothing except my frame of mind, it is still helping.
So - today sucks.
I can't get a real handle on any of my suffering. But I am doing everything possible to help stay relaxed, to help ensure that this is a temporary all-body awful day, and that my mood stays optimistic.
:)