Mind Games

My attitude adjustment, it appears, is not invincible.

I had my wisdom teeth out ten days ago. It has been on the to-do list for a while, however once the teeth dislodged my retainers and caused my gums to swell removal was moved to the top of the triage list. It was horrific timing, as I was just wrapping my head around fighting a chronic pain cycle. Suddenly I spent a week on bed rest chugging vicodin and waiting out the recovery. On the other side, the lack of Enbrel and exercise has destroyed my body. I feel as bad as I did a year ago, plus withdrawal symptoms.

The first few days were okay. I congratulated myself on coming so far that I could endure a procedure like that and stay stable. But as the pain set in, I lost the ability to find a positive angle. I struggle to find one now.

In the past, I was able to hold my head together because I truly believed I could learn something from the experience. I bided my time and sorted through my head and worked really hard and I grew into someone really healthy, not just in body but in mind, more so than I've ever been. Then I was hit. Now the pain really isn't my fault, and everything seems out of my control. I can't reverse anything, or cope with anything, and, for the first time, I feel truly powerless.

I don't know how to believe that I can achieve my previous level of health now that it has been so thoroughly destroyed. Knowing what such a process requires of me, I don't think I want to start over. Now that this has become a mind game, my head is no longer my own, and I have nowhere to retreat. Perhaps the last mental barrier I must defeat is my fear of confronting my pain head on - though I thought that's what I've been doing this whole time. I don't know if I can live in a world where I have to live despite the pain; it seems that living without pain is no longer an option.

And that is one hell of an attitude adjustment.

photo credit: http://archive.student.bmj.com/issues/08/03/life/images/view_3.jpg

Recycling

About two weeks ago, my general prac put me on my first ever narcotic pain regimen. The drug of choice, kadian, is essentially time-released morphine, and although the first couple days were amazing my system subsequently crashed. The goal was to break the pain cycle and allow myself time to gain back the strength I've lost since the accident, but the experiment backfired because instead of feeling better, I simply felt sick in a whole new capacity.

I broke off the narcotics after a week, and instead of going on oxycontin I've elected to proceed with codine and an attitude adjustment. My physiatrist says that he fears I am slipping into a chronic pain cycle, in which the mind tells the body to feel pain when in fact nothing is wrong. This transition is incredibly difficult to undo, and I intend to fight it with everything I have. But now, I'm fighting my own head. Fun.

My physiatrist's main strategy for me is that I should provide my nervous system with other things to focus on besides pain - such as sixty second graders drowning in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." But now that the school year is over, I must find new and equally engaging activities to distract my shredded nerves. Thus, I propose something to the world.

I have always loved visitors, however despite my winning personality I haven't had that many (those of you who have come, know that I appreciate it more than I could say). I understand that people's lives are full and stressful, and that I live in the boonies, but I have been in my house and at the doctor - almost exclusively - for two years. Step up, people, because this part I cannot do alone. I need distraction. Prove that life is out there waiting for me.

photo credit: http://filipaqueiroz.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/escape-key.jpg

Uninspiration

I can remember when I first starting getting better, when I started writing this blog, constantly feeling like I had something to say. I've been searching my self for that inspiration again, but I consistently come up empty. It's like my setbacks block my desire to reach out into the world - or that, subconsciously, I don't want this chapter recorded for posterity. Tracking my triumphs was so much more satisfying than posting updates on my continued misery. It jerks me out of my bubble of denial - and forces me to confront the fact that I'm an invalid.

When I first went on bed rest, I deliberately stopped thinking about the future. I thought about one day, one week, and beyond that I left my life in the hands of the forces beyond my control. It kept me from sinking into the dark place, because when I didn't know what I was missing, I didn't feel as sad. But when my Enbrel started working, I suddenly was imagining where I could be in a month, or six months, or next year. Then some idiot slammed her car into mine, and here I am.

I'm tired of being sick. True, I guess I've always been tired of being sick, and I guess everyone who has a chronic illness is tired of being sick. But I'm twenty-one years old, stuck in my house with the same three angels every second of every day for the past eighteen months. I seek inspiration. I seek something, anything, that awakens in me the knowledge that I could be happy, someday. However, I feel that I have run out of places to look. Today, I made myself breakfast alongside my sister's closest friend, and found myself carrying on a conversation with my dog instead. And while she is a lovely beast, is it so bad to want more than a canine sounding board and a subscription to Netflix?

photo credit: http://jsam.best.vwh.net/images/manipulated/jsam-head-implode2.jpeg

Life, Or The Lack Therof

As a relatively new arthritis patient, I have been exposed to a proverbial deluge of information explaining how I can carpe diem despite my disease. Articles and pamphlets on exercise regimes, diets, or drugs and internet support groups galore are telling me that no matter how bleak my diagnosis, I can still live a full and happy life.

Which is comforting, seeing as I have been doing a lot of that lately.

I sometimes feel like there are too many therapies in my life. Even on the days when I am not at the doctor, my time is eaten alive by physical therapy and pain management regimes, not to mention an anti-inflammatory diet and a rigid sleep schedule. Even though technically I'm "lying around all day", it's not very relaxing.

Every now and then, I think about what I'll do, one day, when I'm free. Depending on how much I'm willing to delude myself about my physical realities, I can imagine myself in all sorts of places and doing all sorts of things. When I pull myself back to the present, though, I know that most of those ideas are impossibilities. That's when I wonder what I'm fighting so hard every day to attain.

Will most of my life be a beta version of this?

photo credit: http://tomhilgardner.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/stuck-in-a-rut-dog.jpg

Volver

Car accident recovery is not going well. Two weeks ago my sciatica suddenly reappeared, and I can't figure out why (other than the blatently obvious reason) or how to quell it. To me, sciatica represents everything I've tried to defeat in the past couple of years, and having that symptom back is depressing in the extreme.

This is my first major regression. Prior to the car accident, I was almost better. I was literally almost better. I had just started thinking about plane rides and road trips and everything else I didn't let myself think about during my time in bed. An inability to follow through on a dream highlights the fact that I'm an invalid, and I've actively resisted making any plans at all while I've been in bed. Now, that dam has burst, and the resulting letdown is almost more discouraging than the symptoms themselves.

I don't know how many more hurdles I will have to jump before I'll actually get to jump. I'm really really sick of everything going wrong.

photo credit: http://blogs.lib.uwaterloo.ca/librarian4math/files/2009/06/frustration.jpg

Children

In January I was recruited by my former teacher to help with her class in their annual play. I quickly assumed the role of director and ended up managing all acting components of the production, which kept me out of bed at least two hours per day five days a week and I believe is a large part of my increased endurance prior to the car accident. Additionally, the kids became My Kids and continue to light up my world as often as I can manage to visit their classroom.

I don't know if this makes me egotistical, but suddenly earning the respect of forty children and holding the responsibility of their performance made me understand that I held some significance in the world. I have often felt forgotten and dispensable in the past couple of years; very few people have the capacity of sitting bedside to a convalsecent, or at least that's what I tell myself. But seven year olds don't care if you're sick as long as you love them back. They carried my chairs and picked up my pencils and never needed to know any details, and I felt like a real person.

Somewhere in the middle of doing fairy makeup and memorizing a shortened version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," I started to understand that some semblance of my old self would still exist when all of this was over. I only feel this way when I'm with them, but my physiatrist says that I have to start taking my symptoms out into the world in order to get better. Right now, there is nowhere I would rather be than in their classroom, attempting to explain black holes without algebra.

Sideswept

My sister and I were in a minor car accident ten days ago. Some apparently legally blind woman in an SUV ran a stop sign and caught the back door of our Prius. Even though neither of us were severely injured, my back injury has been exacerbated to the point that I'm temporarily back on bed rest.

I'm borderline livid. I feel like I had just gotten my "life" pieced together and then, wham, now here I am in bed again. We are hoping that the recovery will be a fastforward version of the one I've been living through, but right now I just feel reinjured. Plus, we now get to deal with the lovely world of auto insurance. Yay.

I am grateful that things are not worse than they are. For example, a slight difference in MPH and that SUV would have hit my door and I don't know what would have happened to me in that case. However, I feel like god or fate or whatever is pointing at me and my family and laughing maniacally.

So, The Plan. Things have been scaled back to six months ago. I dropped my film class to redevote myself to physical therapy and so that I can retreat into my bubble of denial. I'll be seeing all my specialists to document all of this, and I'm back to upwards of four doctors a week. Hopefully we can do this faster this time. If not - well, fortunately, they make movies every year.

photo credit: http://image.motortrend.com/f/auto-news/smart-fortwo-has-impressive-iihs-crash-test-result/9861948+cr1+re0+ar1/2008-smart-fortwo-iihs-side-impact-crash-test.jpg