First, I must appease the Fates and the pain gods by noting that I'm not sure my recent surge of bad days/nights is over. Five minutes from now, I could decide to save this post because I'm in so much pain that I cannot think beyond the desire to be unconscious. Presuming that this isn't the case, I'm going to write a few things about how the few days of relative relief from screaming agony seems as bad as the agony itself. This isn't true but I believe that the human brain protects itself by selectively forgetting the worse pain. Therefore, it seems as if cleaning up the mess left over from days of being beyond what can stand is worse somehow.
One of the things that I did to cope with this last extreme assault was to set aside everything but dealing with the pain. That meant spending every moment when I wasn't forced by nature's call or a doctor appointment in my chair sipping water, soda or beer depending on my strategy of the moment. There was a near 12 hour period where the only way I felt remotely comfortable was to have my teeth immersed in a sip of beer that I held in my mouth as long as I could. It surprised me that this worked but one of those big rules is that you don't question something that works. If the relief was all in my head, so be it. That meant 12 hours of pounding the beer much harder than I wanted to and now it means cutting back to a more reasonable amount of drinking provided that level of pain stays away.
My normal level of consumption is to sip one or two beers in a twelve hour period once or twice a week. Of course, I love the taste of beer so cutting back is unpleasant and I watch myself for any signs that I'm drinking for the sheer enjoyment of it. That's okay but not for while after drinking so much more than I want to drink for health related reasons. This can be summed up by two facts. I love my liver and want it to function perfectly for decades to come. Also, yellow is my favorite color unless we're talking about my skin. I don't know how much alcohol will damage my liver and I don't want to toe that line.
I spent about a month effectively lying flat on my back hoping that the vultures didn't start to circle. As I tried to transition from all out pain control mode to something more responsible, I discovered that my method for keeping my bills paid close enough to on time had broken down for at least one bill. As usual, the shock and fear of seeing a power bill for double its normal amount didn't survive a closer examination. I had failed to pay the April bill on time so they sent me the combined April/May bill with the normal May due date. I replied by making an immediate payment of the April portion. Being behind in my bills was a nightmare that I want to keep far behind me. The April bill was paid with April money leaving the May bill to be paid with May money when it arrives. There is no crisis.
The near crisis happened because my email provider decided to save money with a forced upgrade that I can't afford and I can not keep small numbers of messages in my tablet inbox anymore. If there is one lousy inbox message that I want to keep, it will disappear in a few days. That isn't long enough when I'm flat on my back dealing with a pain crisis. I need that email message to be right there with the rest of business that must be handled in a timely manner. In fact, I would prefer my bills sent by email to flash some angry red color until I deal with them. Seriously, I know the tech exists to keep bills pinned to the top of my inbox indefinitely and to change the font color after a few days of no action.
I'm going to take advantage of the fact that Melissa won't be reading this to bitch just a little bit. I brought this to her attention at what turned out to be an inconvenient time for her. I had awakened her with a pain emergency that morning because I didn't want to do so the night before. She could have resolved this with a beer delivery before I said a word the night before or that morning after a good five or six hours of extreme pain. Maybe she was concerned with my overall level of beer consumption like I was or she might have just been tired. I was in one of my usual conundrums resulting from being so dependent. I wanted to go to sleep in bed and get as many hours of horizontal sleep as possible but I was afraid of falling asleep just long enough for her to leave for work adding 12 hours to my potential point of relief. I awakened her accidentally in my indecisive state though I figure the caterwauling car chorus did the actual waking but I'll take the blame. It was an accident but I wasn't exactly broken up about it. This sort of pain has a real draining effect on my pride.
So I acknowledged her sacrifice as usual especially I didn't need to awaken her this time. I had managed to drift off lightly downstairs and spoke to her on the way out the door as she made a special trip for my sake. I suppose she could have made the stop if I hadn't awakened her that morning. I suppose I would have survived but I don't know how big a role the beer played in my partial recovery yesterday. Maybe I never would have calmed down enough to sleep and I would still be hissing each breath in and out in utter misery. We don't know because she came through.
Last night was different. I was pumped up from my small victory over panic and I saw her light was still on in the bedroom. I came into the room quietly and saw she was still awake so I told her my victory story with the added cautionary tale of the old system breaking down. You know that old saw about how men want solutions when they bring up problems and women want sympathy unless they specify otherwise? All I really wanted was an attaboy for catching the mistake before the crisis point and agreement that [our email service] sucks unpleasant and graphic things. She was tired enough to miss the distinction between a current crisis and one that was resolved. I was tired and wanted to fall asleep ASAP. Instead, we had an overly detailed conversation about using calendar programs.
Okay. Melissa was forgiven before I got to sleep a few minutes later and I hope that I'm just as forgiven. My real beef is with the lousy company making living with a disability just a smidge more difficult. The lousy email setup might be a simple fix. I might have to go searching through a few dozen pages to find the help file for the default that was changed. After the research, I might get my older setup back which would be nice yet I am angry at the idea that some fool has all but forced me to waste energy I don't have to fix a problem I didn't cause. I'm angrier that this desktop PC will need to be replaced with money better used for other things because Microsoft had to stop supporting XP in order to drum up sales for Windows 8.
I know...get off my lawn, you miserable brats and all that jazz. I'm no Luddite but I have to make and carry out big plans every time I have to make a big tech upgrade. I have yet to replace my VHS copy of "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" or anything else from that series but "Wrath of Khan" was the best and I don't have it on DVD or whatever will replace those.
All of this involves things I hurt too much to notice two days ago. Life isn't fair but there should be a way to let chronic pain sufferers concentrate on feeling better instead of adding pain to the rest of life's bullshit.
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