Most of my friends, and even much of my family, don’t quite get the fact that I am in pain constantly.
That means, like, every minute of every day of every week of every month.
Some ask, “How can you stand it?”
I typically respond, “What choice do I have?”
If I choose to live, then I choose to experience pain. Because … so far … and I haven’t given up hope … I will find relief for this pain.
How bad is the pain? Well, the medical profession likes to ask you to measure your pain on a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 is the worst pain you’ve ever experienced. I have problems with this approach to rating pain but that’s another discussion.
To convey how bad the pain is I say, “15 out of 10!”
The truth is the pain has gotten worse over the years. And, it’s not like I haven’t tried “pain killers”. They call them that because they kill the pain while killing you. I’ve tried more than a dozen medications and a half dozen alternative therapies. They haven’t worked.
In fact, all of the traditional pain drugs have created horrendous side effects. To quote Drugs.com “All medications have side effects.” I seem to be the sort of person who gets the most obscure, rare side effect of a drugs.
NO MORE DRUGS FOR ME.
I have been obsessively collecting weather and other data, for the last 10 years, in an attempt to identify the cause or causes of my pain.
I knew that the unstable weather of Calgary provoked my pain. But, not always.
Finally, the other day, I got the solution.
It is weather plus my level of stress that evokes pain.
And, I’ve had a shit storm of stress lately.
Here’s the good news. I can DO something about my stress.
So, I’ve been dusting off all those stress management techniques I used to teach and using them myself.
Wish me luck!
