All of my symptoms were out of control at the same time. The headache was intense and the twitching of head and limbs made it worse but I'm used to that in a way. Every joint ached as if it were the coldest day of the coldest winter ever. When I tried to relax my joints, I realized that the intense pain wasn't just in every joint. Between the joints, every muscle that I know of felt as if it were on fire. While it started out as if it were an almost pleasant weight lifting burn, it got more intense.
I'm lucky because I have Melissa to help me. She saw that I was in worse shape than usual and helped me walk through my bad day routine. I had taken the maximum dose of my breakthrough pain meds so she made me a cup of herbal tea without asking. Thinking about what to choose would have cost me more pain. Anything with camomile helps but she made me something with other herbs along the same lines. Then she cooked some dinner. Food, tea and medicine helped me get to the point where I could bear it.
Even with all of that and meditation, I was in serious discomfort. I told her that the only thing that kept me from asking to go to the ER was my lack of faith in ER pain control. I'm on such high doses of narcotics that all an ER doctor can do is attack specific symptoms. We were already doing that at home after years of experience. (In other words, go to the ER if you feel you should.)
This was just an indication of how much pain I was in because I hate hospitals with a passion. Even considering a hospital trip is my version of putting up the white flag. These last few weeks have been full of pain. Discounting the first 48 hours after my first surgery, this may be the worst I've ever felt over an extended period. There has been a fair amount of rain, a lot of stress and I've felt completely helpless at times.
It's a good thing I knew that time passes. These massive attacks may seem like they take forever but they do pass if managed. I don't know what I'd do without that faith.
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