Tag Archives: pain

That Place You Hate to Hurt

14 Sunday Jun 2020

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Yeah, that one.

I have injured a small piece of my body, and I am very unhappy about it. It seems to have thrown everything off, and the punishment does not fit the crime.

Think about them for a moment, the small lumpy bits. They stick out and get caught on things. Or else they’re a passageway from Point A to Point B. Maybe they get ambitions of grandeur, like when your earlobes get those tiny cysts that feel like lentils of pure pain. Whatever. We’ve all got them, we all stub, overexert, and endanger them on a weekly, if not daily, basis. It’s their job. Somebody had to be the toe on the end; them’s the breaks.

But how then, I ask you, do they then turn into such divas? I’m always reminded of those useful homunculi illustrating the relative intensity of the nerves, although right now I’d say they’re wrong, because my small body part is carrying the rest of me along in a wagon.

So I sit here, alternately trying to ignore the discomfort or to acknowledge and embrace it, occasionally flexing my owie in experimentation, and in general letting it harsh my mellow. I find that the “acknowledge and embrace” school has some pointers: When I concentrate on the actual pain, it seems to pull in its snaky tendrils of domination and once more become just one of the little guys.  An abused, underappreciated little guy, now in rebellion.

However, I have meditating to do and a ferret to exercise. (When you are mindful, the two are not exclusive.) Come along, wee wound, dry your eyes. Human consciousness 1, somatic distraction 0! Woohoo for the home team!

Or maybe my fibro meds are starting to hit. Whatever; I’ll take it. Wouldn’t you?

Stupid Writing

19 Sunday Jun 2016

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OK, got Long Leggedy Beasties launched as my first experiment in self-publishing, finished fine-combing Max AGAIN and am now waiting for my typographer son to finish the cover. Meanwhile, I’ve dived back into Dark Crimson Corners, which is now almost ten years old, and . . . yeesh!

It’s not that I was a bad writer back then. I was a somewhat weaker writer back then; but the yeesh! part is the intensity. This was my first novel, folks, and of course I threw everything but the kitchen sink into it–autobiography to just weird wild hares up my bum. Going through it is exhausting and I need breaks. I’ve been editing out unneeded plot threads and random asides (and changing “Pharaoh” to “Max” because Max’s book is coming first.) I’ll then put together Damascus the serial Slayer’s story (said unneeded plot thread) and run it as a sort of prequel to the rest.

After that? I dunno. By then it’ll possibly be November, and time for NaNoWriMo while battling the pain of a post-surgical knee. (Am going in for the other one on August 8th.) Seeing as I already have a stub done for Things That Go Bump in the Night (sequel to Da Kitttehs), I’m not sure what my WriMo will be. I might stick with the cat theme seeing as it seems to be working.

Oh–an aside for anybody who actually ends up *reading* the stuff: Eureka (published here) is non-canon, meaning it’ll stay here and not mess up the reality my fingers are trying so hard to make coherent.

In other news, back at work and trying desperately to do everything that needs to be done in the seven weeks remaining before my surgery, including putting together a training on the autism spectrum for my co-workers.

My allergies have been killing me, to the point where I have succumbed to using Flonase (ewww), and the new knee is still stiff with painful muscles. (The surgery has healed solid as a rock–no more bone pain!) My sleep is disrupted in that I now wake up too early. (It’s 07:30 now; been up writing since 5, and am yawning to nigh-decapitation.) Despite having tea and morning meds, I will now try to go back to bed for an hour.

And for the Next Six Weeks . . .

12 Tuesday Apr 2016

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. . . I sat around on my butt at home. Ice packs were my friends. All told, the pain hasn’t been too bad, unless I have the thing in a weird position, it’s just the Sisyphean journey to try to just get sheeping comfortable.

The PT my insurance sent out was a nice guy, but we didn’t really do PT per se–he just watched me do my exercises and evaluated how I was walking. He seemed to have a curious aversion to touching me, in fact. *shrug* My real PTs tell me it’s like that, and that they make good money, too. *shrug again*

The nurses who had to come out and give me a finger stick to check my coumadin level were a mixed bag. My favorite one was thrilled by the ferrets, and even took a selfie with one of them! It got so that whenever a new stranger came to the house, they started mugging in their cage to be let out, heh.

Finally I had to venture out into the Big Scary World at the foot of the 37 steps, but that is going well enough. I’m still easily exhausted by it, but I’m building up stamina. This means writing too, but ironically, I’ve just done enough of it that I’m tired now, and will talk about it later!

I Don’t Wanna Go to Rehab

12 Tuesday Apr 2016

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Well, I didn’t . It conjured up the picture (or whatever sensory thing it is) of old person pee; this because I know some folks who live in “rehabilitation facilities” and they’re just nursing homes. Nope, I was going home after my three days in the Beth Israel tomb and hiking up them steps like a mutha-sheeper. This was my plan.

Instead, I found out that for many practical purposes, “total knee replacement” means “removing your leg and replacing it with a pillar of pain.” I needed Mommy to help me pee; no way was I going home to my kids like that.

So, off to rehab we went, me and my stuffed leopard Max, who I discovered is useful as a cervical pillow. There was a support strut up the length of the ambulance’s stretcher that dug into the sore place worn into my butt by four days in bed, and I spent an hour trying to wiggle around it and not make prolonged eye contact with the car in back of us, because weird.

My rehab hospital was in the boonies of Woburn (pronounced WOO-burn) and I was there for only two weeks, because (to quote a certain popular video game) I was filled with determination. I had three hours of therapy a day except on the weekends: an hour of individual PT with the adorable Amy, another hour of OT with the lovable Leigh, who re-introduced me to the wonderful world of personal hygiene with tactful assistance, and then Gait Group, which was boring and rubbed my nose into what a wussy I still was. Those 37 steps loomed over me like a monster guarding the gates to my longed-for home, and I was vastly relieved when Amy and I worked out how to do the hardest part, which is stepping through the door of my building.

Little by little the knee became more cooperative. I got a canned lecture on how Pain Meds Are Bad while I was there, which was weird, because my surgeon’s practice has made it clear that there’s only a certain window to bring the knee fully online, and if pain is getting in the way, it makes the whole freaking exercise pointless, and you can always just be brought off the meds if needed. (Yay! say I. Especially since the anticoagulant for the blood clots mean I can’t use NSAIDs like most post-surgical folks.)

I ordered some basic stuff while there, joining Amazon Prime to make sure it got home in time: Handlebars for my john, a bench for my shower, and a couple of reaching tools which have captivated the cat, who can’t get her tail grabbed by them often enough. I recommend all these things.

Then the golden moment came when the bestie showed up to spring me the hell out of there. It hadn’t been a bad stay–bed was comfy, roommates nice–but the night shift left something to be desired in terms of getting the pain meds out on time. (I Officially Complained, which caused a minor kerfuffle, with night service improving radically afterwards. Use that phone number on the wall, patients of the world!)

And with the help of my daughter at thar sheeping doorway, I made it up all 37 steps just fine. Yay me!

Now with Extra Titanium!

12 Tuesday Apr 2016

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So, for those of you who missed it, here’s the update/explanation for my absence: On February 8, I had my right knee replaced. Even to me, this still sounds like a “meh” in the world of bodily modification–it’s not even as if knees are interesting gooshy bits: They’re dry and chewy and we don’t even notice what they do unless they stop doing it. Well, wrongo, Mary Lou. Total knee replacement is a Big Fat Hairy Deal, considered to be one of the most painful surgeries out there with one of the longest recoveries. Everybody told me this beforehand, with the result that I was terrified out of my tiny brain.

It’s exactly 9 weeks later, and despite having told myself beforehand that the several months of recovery would be GREAT for my writing, I have only now re-surfaced to tell y’all about it. Writing is hard when you’re distracted by pain and the need to move it/ice it/be gracious to all the medical professionals in your face.

Where to begin? Well, for those of you who are sciencey, this link from my orthopods will give you pictures of the anatomy in detail. For the rest of you, they basically sawed off the cartilage-bearing parts of my knee joint off (what cartilage I had left, this being The Problem) and replaced it with this shiny titanium baby:

fake knee

(Only I think my spacer is ceramic. I’ll have to remember to ask.) This did indeed hurt quite a lot, I’m not going to lie, but it also was NOT the-most-horrible-pain-I-have-ever-had. (That trophy is shared between kidney stones and my worst menstrual cramps: I am a pain professional!) I had both local injections (to help with the immediate pain post-surgery) and a spinal with so much sedation that I didn’t know a thing until it was over–I was as much a non-participant as if I’d had a general, with less recovery yuckies.

The physical therapy team at the hospital showed up on schedule that very afternoon to get my slacker butt out of bed so I could stand on the new knee starting immediately. (I don’t know why they do this. I will ask my real PT when I see her this Friday at my first outpatient visit. Bean counters should note that yes, outpatient PT only starts at the two month point.) This standing thing is made challenging because pain, and also because those numbing injections make you super wobbly. PT don’t care; PT don’t play. There is a fairly brief window where it’s mobility v. scar tissue formation.

This did lead to one of the most painful medical things I’ve ever had done (up there with endometrial biopsies), which was the main PT forcing my knee back on Day 3. This produced a level of screaming and crying that embarrassed me a bit but was totes called for–and I am NOT a wussy. (In fact, I once got sent home from critical care during one kidney stone because I was too controlled about it–they didn’t figure on it being my umpteenth stone. I had an infection, btw.) This range-of-motion thing isn’t quiiiiite the emergency they claim, as the surgeon bends the knee (duh, to make sure it works) before closing. No other PT person did this to me (and none will again, bwah ha ha).

However, it did put the fear ah Gawd inta me bigtime, and I hustled my butt into all those knee bending exercises out of fear that I would once again fail to please. (Bear in mind that I was out of my gourd on pain meds, etc., so was not my usual spunky Advocacy Lass self for quite a while.) As of now I am at 110 degrees of flexion (my heel almost touches my butt), and can straighten the thing out almost completely! (This translates to “rock star.”)

The four and a half days in the original hospital were the worst part of the whole thing. Not so much pain, but I have a well-behaved cat’s reaction to Things Not My Usual Litter Pan, and the food was atrocious beyond belief. The room was claustrophobic, and in the middle of this whole adventure, despite support socks that cut into my fat little legs and annoying booties that auto-inflated, I got blood clots in my lungs. (Maybe not from the surgery. Hematological workup pending next month.) Not too seriously, but I’ll be on anti-coagulant meds for a while to come. Sigh. I miss you, Vitamin K rich veggies.

And this was one of the best hospitals in Boston. Sigh again. But, seeing as I had 37 stairs awaiting me at home, my next stop was rehab, about which more later.

Pain

04 Thursday Jul 2013

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Five weeks ago I gave myself a brutal sprained ankle, with the upshot that I’m not going to be going to the fireworks tonight–there’s still some residual inflammation, and the two miles would do me in. Hell, I’d be done in when I got there, and I don’t know if that beautiful rumble in my chest would pump out enough serotonin to compensate for the weedy little voice inside whining, “When do I get to sit do-o-own?” We live close enough to the action that we’ll be able to hear them–not loudly enough–but not see them at all. Which makes it worse.

(Hmm, what if I take one of my crutches . . .? What if I just open up a big #10 can of get-over-it?)

I also have arthritis in my knees, and I seem to recall this keeping me home last year. This is unfair, seeing as I got my magic cortisone shots this week, and all that hurts are these two or three acid-dipped rubber bands running up the inside of my lower calf. I’d love to go; to take my son, who is new to the Big City and Real Fireworks (set off by professionals who do not get their heads blown off). But there it is: I’m a wussy. There’s only so much soldiering through I can do.

The thing about this is that I’m a pain champion. Screw that tired labor/childbirth stuff (which I escaped via cesarean, therefore sullying my resume)–I get repeated kidney stones! (Women swear they’re worse, and I’ve lost count–probably 30ish, with two serious kidney infections to boot.) And I once had a bowel obstruction. I wanted to go to my emergency room, so at 5 am (thinking I just had a kidney stone, because that was how acute the pain was) I walked half a mile to the subway, changed trains, endured the longest 5 minute cab ride of my life, and showed up able to get the concepts “kidney stone” and “puking NOW” across. I get migraines! Champion, I tell you!

I suppose it’s the particular sort of pain–you can grit your teeth against a constant agony. Work on your breathing. Advice: don’t overdo this. I once had a stone obstruct (no good very bad life threatening) and the blob of clay I saw sent me home accusing me of “drug-seeking.” (N.B.: I wanted Toradol, which does nothing interesting to you at all.) I just wasn’t showing enough pain. In vain did I tell her that I had learned the hard way that crying doesn’t give the nice people in the E.R. the information they need. Letter in her file. Heh.

But when every step sends a needle of fire up my leg I whimper like the sissy little girl I really am. And it’s almost healed now, too. You should have seen me a couple of weeks ago, with the kids waiting on me and trying not to glare at the men who didn’t give me their seats on the train. (Five times out of six, seat-givers are women.)

I am, of course, no stranger to psychic pain, and I’ve had a boatload of that too. Sometimes I soldier, sometimes I whimper. Sometimes I try to figure out if watching all that CSI means I might not get caught, bwah ha.

But fireworks have always made it better. I was in the hospital in Indianapolis once (hyperemesis with daughter, sigh) and they had a huge window overlooking the river where they were setting them off. Best fireworks seat ever; mood a trifle dampened by it being in a cancer surgical ward; been puking for four days straight–all day–but . . . fireworks, man!

How much can it possibly hurt?