Dreaming of Pain

I always find it fascinating how my subconscious interprets physical pains. 

Whenever I go through a flare-up or a painful procedure, you can bet that I will have dreams about pain. 

For instance, when my Crohn's flares up, I usually dream of being stabbed in the abdomen. The sharp pains of intestinal cramping is interpreted, in my mind, as being stabbed with large blades. At least that's how my dreams tend to go. 

When my joints and muscles are especially painful, I have had a wide variety of dreams that range from being stung by thousands of wasps at once to falling on a bed of needles or hot coals. 

This latest one, though, is an entirely new interpretation (to go along with a new procedure). This week I went through my first Radio-Frequency Ablation - done on the nerves in my left SI Joint. My dreams last night were very specific: I was lying face down and someone was taking a chisel to my lower back. The chisel itself was burned at the end in fire and was hammered into my back, one agonizing centimeter at a time, using a rock. 

How do your dreams interpret pain? I would love to hear the strange and fascinating ways the mind represents chronic and physical pains. 

Scary Stories

I am not quite sure why, although I have a general theory, but I find that the more I watch, read, or listen to scary stories, the fewer nightmares I seem to experience.

For whatever reason, whether I just simply have a twisted mind, some latent aggression, or if it stems from long-term use of certain medications (*cough*Prednisone*cough*), I tend to have nightmares and even night terrors on a regular basis. I have lucid nightmares, I have sleep paralysis (which always occurs as a nightmarish experience) and have been known to have both auditory and visual hallucinations. 
Though when I have been watching horror films, they seem to stop. Or at least my nightmares are more normal - like spiders or bees or falling or something more run-of-the-mill.

My theory is that, unless my mind has something frightening on the external to focus on, up bubbles these demonic horrifying visions from within my own psyche. If I do not have an outlet, my mind comes up with its own versions of absolutely horrifying scenarios. Scenarios I have never heard of - scenarios I could not consciously think of.
Trust me - compared to what my inner mind seems to bring up, I will gladly take nightmares of being attacked by gigantic spiders or surrounded by angry bees or ravenous wolves. Those do not scare me. Much.

So, after a particularly soul-shattering nightmare last week, I began falling asleep while listening to a podcast: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. These stories have all been really cool to listen to, and oddly comforting.
They are stories.
I know they are stories.
My mind knows they are stories. So they become an external outlet. I have not had a nightmare since. Not even a regular one!
I hope it is effective in keeping my nightmares/night terrors away.
Otherwise I would have many more nights of being legitimately frightened to fall asleep.

How strange is that? I wonder sometimes if it is fairly common for people to feel in actual spiritual, even mortal, danger if they fall asleep.

Dreams and Nightmares

I wonder about the dreams and nightmares of anyone who is ill, scarred, disabled.

Do you dream about yourself in your current situation?

Do you dream about yourself as healthy?

If you are in a wheelchair, do you dream of yourself as in a wheelchair, or do you dream about walking?

If you were healthy and became ill, do you dream about when you were healthy? Or do your flashbacks reflect your more ill self?

These are genuine questions I wonder about.
Some of my dreams and nightmares are insane. Creative, unpredictable, nothing I could ever consciously think of. However, if I am in the dream or nightmare, I am myself as I am right now. My husband in my dreams is always my real husband. Unless I am having flashbacks about me as a child (in which case I dream of the real houses I used to live in), the house I dream of is the house we currently live in. The dogs around me are the dogs we are raising.
Of course, the husband in my nightmares is often a jerk, but I think that is a fairly normal kind of nightmare. I try not to be irrationally angry with him for what he does in my dreams, but it sometimes takes me a few minutes to cool down.

For anyone who is drastically ill, who has suffered trauma, do you dream of yourself as you are?

Final Goal

In my latest 'Ask Me Anything' post, I had shared my most recent blog about deciding not to have children.
In that post it was clear that our family is complete and that our lives are full.
This question was then posed:

"What is your final goal in your life?"

This is a bit of a difficult question to answer.

Most importantly, I hope I have decades of life before I have only one, final goal.

It is not like I have this list of goals for my life that I am working towards. I have always had pages and pages-worth of small little goals in various areas of my life. You know, there are goals about the house, there are goals for places to see and things to do. I try to focus on the little to intermediate goals, because little progressions lead to bigger goals.

But if you want me to tell you about my BIG life goals, I will try to answer as best I can.

1. I want to always focus on the relationships that I have. Those are one of THE most vital parts of living a happy life (for me specifically). Family comes first. I want to be able to see my brother and his family more often, I want to be able to see my parents and my friends more often, and I plan to start writing old-school letters to friends I cannot see on a regular basis.

2. I would love to become a published author - to have a book deal. To have a book of some sort on the shelves of every major book retailer in Canada.

3. I would love to do something extraordinary with my singing. I know that there is only so much that I can physically do, so I have had to work on this in a very different way, but the goal is still there. I would love to release another cd at some point, perform background vocals for someone exceptional, and I want to sing on a stage again. Not just any stage, but a stage with a huge crowd. The anthem at CFL or NHL games. A background vocalist for a concert. Hell, the LEAD vocalist at a stadium with tens of thousands of fans. It may be far-fetched, but it continues to be a goal.

4. If I am ever able to travel, I would love to see the East Coast, to go to a Seahawks Game IN Seattle, I would LOVE to go back to Europe. I would love to go to Cedar Point and ride every single rollercoaster. I would love to go back to Disneyland, to spend a weekend in Jackpot, Nevada, to see the Galapagos Islands, to go on another cruise, to do a cross-country train trip in Canada, to learn how to surf in Hawaii, to have a romantic getaway in Tahiti, and to visit our ancestral castle in Scotland. These are more wishes than goals... but I am hoping that the East Coast and the Seahawks game are achievable in the future. I plan on experiencing some virtual reality activities to get a glimpse of some of these places and some activities I have always wanted to do but couldn't due to health reasons. (Like scuba diving, hang gliding, etc...)

5. I want to learn. I want to continually cultivate my curious mind and learn all the time.

6. I want to improve my art skills and continue improving them. I would love to be able to make a statement through art and literary works.

7. I am working on my cooking skills all the time. I would love to take little courses in the culinary arts - but if I cannot take classes then I am focusing on trying new recipes on a semi-regular basis. (I just learned how to make chicken roulade AND French macarons, which I need to continue working on). I also watch a lot of cooking shows and then try to make similar recipes.

8. I want to continue kayaking, camping, and practicing yoga. I want to go swimming more often (which is really difficult with a chlorine allergy and living where the lakes are too cold to swim in for 10 months of the year). My goal is to simply increase the amount of time I spend in these activities.

9. I want my husband to travel. This is a big goal. There are many places he has always wanted to travel, so I would really love for him to go even though I would not be able to join him.

10. I would love to be able to help out my family as much as they help me. My health is a burden. There is no getting around this fact. As stubborn as I am and as independent as I can be, suffering with health conditions is a burden on time, finances, goals, and oh so many aspects of life. I would love to be able to return the amount of time and energy my family has spent on me.

But my most important goal, the epitome of life, my purpose, my daily and lifelong goal:

I never want to take love for granted. I want to enjoy every moment, see the bright side of nearly every crummy situation, and remain grateful for everything in my life. Maintaining this grateful feeling and this love is the most important goal I will ever have.

I hope this answer has been satisfactory. :)
Thank you so much for participating in the 'ask me anything' posts. These questions have all been illuminating.
Bring on more questions - especially the difficult ones. The difficult questions offer the most amount of soul-searching.

Dare to Dream

I had very strange dreams last night. Crazy dreams. One was kinda good, one was weird and bad but not anywhere near night terror kind of bad.

◇The good one was about football.
Not NFL though.
Recreational League.
Apparently I decided to join a league, on a team with several of the people I used to play league volleyball with, and we played in a massive year-end weekend tournament. The dream mostly took place at the wind-up banquet. My original position was wide receiver (just like my Dad in real life), and I was pretty damn good. I wound up getting 4th overall in the league for that position (out of men and women). Then, some key players didn't show up, so I had to fill in on defense as well. I got 6th overall as a defensive tackle. (This was a very specific dream). I received some cash, a prize, and then some extra raffle tickets to put in as many of the 10 raffle prize boxes I liked.
I never did get that far in the dream.
I was handed my prize and envelope for 6th overall, smiled, went back to my table, and woke up!◇

Sometimes vivid dreams become intense and frightening, especially after taking a certain medication. This one, however, turned out to be just plain fun.

I had a fairly awful sleep overnight. I was up multiple times for the washroom - my intestines are downright ticked off, despite the fact that I stuck to Boost, rice, and apple sauce all day - and I got paranoid a few times. Medication oops.
Then this morning, as my alarm went off to take my medication, I was reluctant to move. I had FINALLY found a comfortable position, and I knew that if I just simply turned off my alarm and closed my eyes, I would be back asleep immediately.
I cannot miss my medications though, otherwise my entire day is messed up.
Just as I was about to say 'screw it' and fall blissfully back into an actually solid slumber, my intestines woke up.
They woke up brutally.
One intense intestinal cramp followed by me springing out of bed and hobbling like lightning to the washroom in order to avoid a reeeeeally bad morning definitely had me far too awake to fall back asleep.

My days are usually so uneventful!! Why do my nights have to be so busy?
At least I had some good dreams sprinkled in with my usual nightmares.

The question now is, do I try and sleep for a couple more hours, or accept defeat and force myself to get up and get moving?

Next Level Paranoia

I don't even know quite how to explain this one.

Well, let's start with how I have been feeling. Yesterday was bad. Really bad. We had a busy and eventful Family Day Weekend, so yesterday was bound to be bad. My head felt like it was in a vice all day and didn't settle down until about 1am. I had pain in my chest, pain in all of my joints, in most of my muscles, exhaustion, pain in my GI tract, and spent the day wanting to vomit and having no real appetite (but eating anyways). That's all pretty normal for me after a busy day or two. But then there were a few other things. When I was doing my stretches or just putting my head between my legs to help my nausea, it felt like water was filling up my nasal cavity - like when you dive into water and it shoots up your nose. Your head fills with pressure and it hurts like hell. But this is every single time I even look down for more than a few seconds.
I figure I just caught a cold or something.
Then going to bed I felt completely feverish (which is rare for me). Some chest pain, horrible sweating fit, feeling hot and clammy all over, and the nausea. The intense nausea.

Alright, so whatever right? I mean, a couple extra random annoyances, from a couple extra busy days. It is just my body trying to fight something (trying to fight itself, really). Plus I did my Berinert injection yesterday and could barely muster up the strength to get out of bed and get to the couch!

But then my mind went nuts - while I was sleeping!! Now I want to preface this by mentioning that I did not do any searches online for any symptoms, I do NOT think my dream is correct, and I am NOT condoning going this far in 'listening to my body'. This is just too weird and random.

I had a dream. More of a nightmare. Most of it doesn't even make sense.
*In my dream, I apparently had some sort of heart monitor. There was a little bar code on a little label on my chest that I was supposed to get looked at every 5 years, but it had been longer than that. I also had a friend who had the SAME monitor, and she called me because she lost her label and asked if I knew her bar code. Somehow I did, and then that reminded me to book an appt to check mine out. So me, Mom, Dad, Ryan, and Dex all went in to the hospital to check it out. The doc took a look at the monitor and noticed that twice a month, I was experiencing "Pleural Effusions", and that we had to keep a closer eye on me for a while. Then Dex ran away and got lost and I woke up in tears.*

Completely random. Frankly I did not even know that I knew there was something called a pleural effusion. When I woke up, I went to Google what it was and spelled it "plural" at first. Of course it has nothing really to do with the heart and I obviously did not have a good understanding of what it was, I likely just heard the term on one of the MANY medical shows that I watch, but I did happen to find out that it can be a side effect of Cosentyx.

Just interesting.

Again let me reiterate that I do not think I have it and this is beyond strange, but it does give me a push to mention my weirder symptoms to my doctor if they persist. I DO have an appointment with my rheumatologist in a couple of weeks to talk about the Cosentyx progress, so it might be a good place to mention any odd symptoms - but only if they continue and are not just my body recuperating from a busy weekend...

Anyways - there is my story of total next level paranoia -> dreaming about pleural effusions and heart monitors while I am not actively thinking about anything medical.

Dreams Come True

You know, I think that in one way or another, each person's dreams do come true. Often it is not the way in which we expect. Sometimes it isn't actually what we thought we wanted... but there is happiness in every situation. We just have to look more closely to see it sometimes.

I always valued my independence. I always wanted to know how to do things on my own, but my biggest dreams were:

1. Find a kind man who I would share the rest of my life with - hopefully by age 24 so we could have kids. (Baha lil late).
2. Travel - especially to Europe. (Paris, Venice, see Vivaldi's church, etc...)
3. Get a post-secondary education and USE my post-secondary education credentials.
4. Play volleyball competitively for as long as possible.
5. Make some kind of name for myself musically.

Each of these dreams ended up being encapsulated by some pretty significant health issues - but those issues became a catalyst for some of these dreams.

Sure I wanted to travel and live abroad for years... but health only allowed for a certain amount of travel. I still made it to the countries I so desperately wanted ro visit, I gained some incredible life experience, and those trips increased my confidence ten-fold -> confidence in myself, confidence in being independent, confidence in who I was and where I was going and what I wanted out of life.

Sure I hoped to play volleyball at the highest competitive levels... but my health (and height, and skill levels) all combined to jeopardize my chances. But this also encouraged me to join recreational leagues. They were still competitive, just not on the world stage that I craved. Doing it this way instead helped me become a better player, a more versatile player, built up my confidence, kept me active (by playing on 13 teams), and helped me meet some absolutely incredible people that will always remain friends despite now seeing them so rarely.

Sure I was hoping to do a Master's in Psychology, a Master's in English, and a Master's in Music, plus a Doctorate in the former two. It took me an extra 6 months to complete my undergraduate, and without enough medical coverage, I could not afford to be a career student, and I could not be a professor without further education. That circumstance brought me to the city I now live in. I got incredible work experience and, again, ended up in a situation that I did not plan for, but which gave me terrific experience and also helped me be, again, more versatile. Not only that, but this set of circumstances led me to become more involved in music than I ever thought possible. I dove into new opportunities that seemed impossible to begin with - and yet came out the other side with a new set of skills I never thought I was capable of learning. In fact, even though I cannot actually work, I have probably utilized my degree more effectively than most students who have a degree in the arts. I finished my undergrad AND I am using that education every day in my own home.

Sure I wanted to make it as an animated Disney Princess, or be a cocktail singer at some posh martini bar, or sing on a cruise ship, or be a backup vocalist for some hotshot musical mogul, or even become a mogul myself, but that has yet to occur. When I went traveling, I DID, however, perform on a cruise ship. For the past several years I HAVE sung for some incredibly fancy fundraising events, I have performed on stages and been a backup vocalist and accompanist to some other singers with killer vocal talent, and my youtube channel views increase every single day.

Now for the big one.
The monumental dream.
The dream to meet that one man; that one person with whom I share everything. The guy who makes me weak in the knees and knows exactly how to make me smile. That kind, generous, and genuinely wonderful guy who I fell in love with, who proposed in one of the most romantic locations I have ever been.
Sure it took me until age 28 to find him. Sure I will not have those kids I wanted - especially the daughter I have thought about so endlessly. My health and the prognosis of future health issues have changed that direction. But I am unbelievably happy. I have an adorable puppy who I love to bits, my relationship with RJ is exactly the kind of relationship I had always dreamed of, and my quality of life at home is tremendous despite all of the complications. I love our boring life. Spending days at home with our pup, having movie nights in and board game nights and playing cards and eating meals together. These are all wonderful things. So if I can ignore the fact that every day is tarnished just a little bit with pain and medication and unfortunate health complications, then it seems downright beautiful.

So sure, my health isn't great. It could always be worse, and I am lucky in many ways, but let's be real here: it would be nicer to suffer less pain and deal with fewer medications.

My dreams have come true all the same - they are just wrapped unexpectedly.

I would never go back and undo the direction in which my life has gone. WITH illness.