Another Pain Cycle
*(I write this after having had my phone turned off for the last 2 weeks and not having posted anything on the blog about my absence.)
*warning, the following article touches on the subject of suicide.
This is the downside of running a business, when you hold all the positions from Founder to unpaid intern, all while dealing with chronic pain. No one can step in when your pain takes hold.
The truth is, I have never truly felt pain relief. I mean this in the sense that I have never taken something that has made the pain go away. My only form of “pain management”, that has somewhat been effective is, just waiting it out. Since my first brain injury, I’ve been keeping a running list of my top 10 most painful moments, in my head. I don’t know why I’ve done this or why I started keeping this tally, I think it helps my analytical brain to remember that it has happened before, and that I’ve survived. It may also be a female thing (keeping count since your last period), instead I keep count of the last time I was in debilitating pain. Over the last 9 years, since my first brain injury, I would have an “episode” every few weeks maybe 2-3 times a month. I have had a headache everyday for the last 8 years. Unfortunately, you get used to, waking up, going to bed and just living with it, day in and day out. The episodes are referring to when the baseline headaches gets so bad that I can no longer function. They are completely debilitating, I cannot speak or communicate. Nothing I’ve ever taken has ever taken away or lessened the pain of one of these episodes. Usually I go to bed, shake uncontrollably and wake up the next day feeling like I was hit by a truck or beat up. Usually the aftershock lasts about a day or so. However, a few weeks ago, I had an episode, a week later I had another one and a week after that another one. I’m now in week 4 wondering if I’ll have a fourth. Usually my body gets a break between to recover, not this months. The episodes have gotten so bad that my body cannot deal with the pain. During these last 3 episodes, my body shook uncontrollably, I was throwing up and my head was bruised. The aftershocks of each episode lasted a week and then I would have another episode. I am now starting to experience PTSD from the pain and am truly scared of when it will happen again. I’m used to dealing with the pain, surviving and forgetting about it until it happens again. But now I live in constant fear that every time my base headache spikes that it’ll be another episode. Like I’ve said before, I am not suicidal; however, in my last episode, it came to me that if creator had taken me, I would’ve been thankful.