The Lighter Side of: Crash Days

I have always wondered what goes on internally when my body crashes. It is not exactly like I choose to lie down or do nothing when I crash. It is more the proverbial 'hitting a wall', mentally, physically, physiologically.
I wonder - if we took an MRI or some sort of imaging of my brain at the moment of crashing - what would we see?
Would it resemble a computer's 'blue screen of death'? All systems shutting down at once? Would it resemble a blackout, all little lights flashing off then turning back on? Would it be like the electronics in stormy weather, flickering, static, spotty communication?
Or would it show nothing at all?

I don't think it would show nothing, but I don't know if we have discovered the actual physiological reaction of someone who has 'crashed' from chronic illness.
It is more than just feeling exhausted and having a nap.
You know when you have been too active - pushed yourself too far - and the lactic acid has built up in your muscles?
It is sort of similar.
It is more like accidentally taking a huge gulp of boiling hot water that you thought was not boiling. You feel the burn go down your esophagus and into your stomach, but there is nothing you can do to improve the discomfort. You can try eating carbs or drinking cold water, but the damage is done. So you start to fidget and move around and flail about, hoping to distract yourself from pain.
Crashes are much like that. Every part of your body feels burned from the inside out. A build-up of acid - in your organs, in the cavities that house your organs, in your brain and bones and muscles.
You become irritable and begin to feel like you may collapse (and sometimes you do collapse). You feel like you have NO idea how you are even going to make it through the day.
So when you finally have a moment to lie down, your body shuts down entirely. You fall into this restless kind of sleep where you forget where you are, who you are, and what you're doing. The entire world melts away as though you have mentally left that world because your body can very literally take no more.

My crash day was yesterday.
I had hoped I could make it until today because our youngest pooch had an appointment yesterday that I had to take him to by myself but, alas, it was yesterday. Nothing was working. Everything was hurting. I could not think straight and it took ALL my stores of energy just to get him to the appointment.
He was whining, Decker was whining when we were leaving, I forgot doggy bags and had to go back. Then I forgot his obligatory stool sample and had to turn back. I was stressed. I was angry - really angry - for no real reason. I felt a strong compelling urge to punch things and scream.
Instead, I sat in my car and cried for an indulgent moment, then got on with the day.
When we got home, I got the boys lunch, then I went to lie down in the bedroom without even putting the little one in his kennel.

Somewhere in that crash, Rj had come upstairs, took the dogs out, shut the doors. I apparently had put an eye mask on and earplugs in. Total escape. I crashed for over two hours. Woke up with a fever and excessive dry mouth. Felt like I had been hit by a train. This crash did not at all affect my sleep last night either.
That's also a good indication of a crash - a 2 hour nap in the afternoon causes zero difficulty falling asleep later. I did have trouble relaxing to fall asleep though, but that was because of pain, not insomnia.

Today is the after-effect.
Not as angry, not as frantic, more just physically exhausted. So I am cuddling with the puppies. I am watching Netflix. I am watching the rain outside, drinking Boost so as not to irritate my intestines further. Today will be filled with tea, hot chocolate, Boost, maybe jello or pudding or yogurt, ice cream, lots of movies, puppy cuddles, and a backrub later.

For years, these crash days would happen once a week, then they reduced to once a month. Now, because I have not been working, these crash days happen 3 or 4 times a year. They happen when I try to do too much. They happen when I do not allow myself enough break time.

The Lighter Side of: Crash Days is that they FORCE you to take a much-needed break. Crashes allow our brains to disappear, without damage. They require resting, easy soft foods, and lots of lying down. I am not expected to do anything. I am not expected to even be awake through the whole day. I am cuddled and held and waited on (a little bit). Most of all, though, I am through the worst of it.
The best part of crash days is the ice cream. No guilt, eating out of the tub, like a bad breakup. My usual tub of ice cream of choice: Turtles.
:)

The Elephant Man

The Elephant Man was on tv the other day.
I had never seen it, so I recorded it on our PVR.
It is a black and white 1980 film, starring Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt, that tells the basic tale of John Merrick (really Joseph Merrick) who was severely disfigured.

Today was a crash day for me, so I remained in bed the vast majority of the day. An intriguing film to curl up to with blankets and snacks was exactly the sort of night that I needed.
So, while lying in bed, pouting from my overall malaise that just will not let up, I huddled in for a movie night.

Almost instantly I felt guilty for feeling sorry for myself at all.
This man had such a difficult life. Far more than most. Not only that, but he was also living in a time when people like him were treated almost solely as circus 'freaks' and 'invalids'.
Every breath for him was laborious.

I am unsure of whether or not the film stayed relatively true to his life's story, but I truly hope that some specific sentiments were, in fact, his true words and/or thoughts.

There was a particular phrase that really touched me:

"I am happy, my friend. I am content. I am fulfilled, because I know that I am loved."

It's such a profound idea: that love really can make such a monumental difference between being miserable (and beaten) to being content - even in the most difficult of situations.

Love is a miracle in and of itself. Whether it is a friend, an animal companion, a child, a family member, a passion, a talent, faith, etc... feeling love can get you through anything. It may not fix anything, it may not even save someone, but love can offer something far greater that goes beyond our understanding.

I am grateful to have found love in various forms.

A Stark Contrast and a CRASH DAY

I had one pretty great day on Saturday. I had energy, some surprise reduced pain, and I took full advantage of it. There was no guarantee the great day would even last a full day, let alone any longer. So I did everything I could do. I still needed a nap, of course, and I still needed my cane in the evening, I had to sit on my wheelchair cushion, I still suffered a brutal migraine, and I still had a multitude of limitations, but it was still one of the best health days I had had in a while.
The following day was a rest day... but not a full crash day. The migraines are really wearing me down, but I was still functional.
Last night we had tickets to a show. Before the show I was feeling awful and completely knocked out from the medication that helps these insane migraines. I slept the entire day so that I could be okay going to this stunning dance performance.
As Rj was pushing me in the wheelchair, with me in a pretty white dress, sitting on an extra gel cushion on top of my wheelchair cushion, and I thought: what a stark contrast from Saturday afternoon to Monday night.
(See, it still surprises me how big of a rollercoaster chronic illness can be).

Luckily though, even though I expected a Crash Day yesterday, it came today instead. I say 'luckily' because I had nothing I really needed to do today. I could uncomfortably stay in bed (or the bathroom) all day if I needed to. And oh boy has today EVER been a crash day.
(You know on HGTV when everyone yells "Demo Day" because it's fun and exciting and they get to wield sledgehammers? That's how I yell "Crash Day" to try and trick my brain into thinking it's a *good* thing.)

The pain, the burning pain, the acid-pooling, the cramping, the migraine, the exhaustion, the weakness, the incontinence, the general flare-up of ALL symptoms - it just hits you like a train. Unstoppable. All-at-once. You can feel everything. You can't do anything about it.
All I can do is ride out this crash day.
So even though my hair is super oily, I cannot risk having a bath lest an accident occur, I do not have the strength or the energy to have a shower (even seated). I cannot stand up straight because of intestinal pain and cramping. I cannot be more than a few steps away from the washroom (for obvious reasons).
What I can do is rest.
Spend the entire day allowing my body to recharge. Using my bed as a charging station so that I can actually function at maybe 20-30% for the remainder of the week.

It is amazing though.
If you saw me on Saturday, you may have thought I was faking yesterday. If you saw me today, you would think Saturday was impossible. But that is the very nature of these diseases. It is what makes it so very difficult to understand.