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Dec. 15th, 2012 03:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stitchwhichSome of what I'm about to write may elicite a "well, duh" reponse - please, don't write it in the comments.
I've been happily looking at the mail every day, cheerful at the anticipation of holiday cards. Some of them are so nice! It is hard, it seems, to find nice cards this year so I am especially appreciative of the ones that come to us. And got a giggle from one of them - it is the same card design that I'd sent to that couple one or two years ago. The classics, they stay around... and today while at the drug store I found a very good card to send to a friend who I owe, simply owe, one to for the hideous monstrosity that she sent to us a couple of years ago. I'm still playing catch-up on that one.
For the last couple of weeks I've been more careful about the amount of time I spend on my feet. I have become more aware now of the pain that sets in when I've been up too long and somewhat bemused by the knowledge that I was just plain unaware of it for so long. I honestly have no idea when it started happening. It crept up on my. I know that I've avoided the behaviours that I am now aware trigger the pain for quite a while, so I am assuming that it has been there for at least as long as I've been modifying my behaviour. That puzzles me when I think about it... how easily we can just grow used to something and not even be aware of it. It has been a couple of years, I think, since I was nonchalant about walking a great deal or doing heavy physical labour. And I've backed off from cooking much, or even something minor such as getting all the laundry done in one gulp - and in all that time, my avoidance has triggered guilt and shame for 'being lazy'. "Each one of us has got an inner voice which comments, challenges, criticises or else encourages us with each and every activity we do at different times of the day." My inner voice has been naggingly loud about my laziness and in the course of the last couple of years, so insidious has it been that expressions on my husband's face, or his noisy exhalations of breath during a discussion (or when, for example, I decline attending something that we once would go to together) have been interpreted by me as a mirror of my own negative inner judgement.
So now, when I finally actually know that I have a physical problem to address, one that does, indeed, require that I modify my daily behaviour, it is still difficult for me to shake that disapproving inner voice. I end up feeling defensive and prickily. And apologetic, too, which then leads me to resentment. I'm not sure how to work on eliminating that from my emotional lexicon but it needs to be addressed. This disability that I have - it isn't going to magically get better. Oh, I'm not giving up and crawling in a corner! But neither am I going to beat myself up for acknowledging that I have a limitation and there isn't something morally or eithically wrong with me for accepting it. When I have flashes of acceptance, I've been able to stratagise (hey, I spelled that wrong, didn't I?) for ways to make things easier to get done. I have a kitchen stool, for one, that has been sitting forgotten in a dark corner of our living room for a couple of years. If I pulled it out, I could sit on it and maybe even wash a full load of dishes without having to take two or three breaks before I was done. (Ever notice how long it takes to wash dishes by hand? I hadn't. Not until recently. I just berated myself for nearly always having a little pile of dishes off to the side of the sink. Using the dishwasher - bending up and down to load and unload it - is less appealing than standing at the sink. Except that I can't stand there, that is, for more than 10 minutes at a time.)
Anyway.
I couldn't sleep last night and finally in desperation took the maximum dose of medicine prescribed to me for that problem. And fell asleep sometime after eight o'clock this morning. Until six this evening... almost ten hours of solid uninterrupted rest. I woke up refreshed (although still kinda groggy) and in the mood to get things done. Laundry, errands, clearing off piles on the table... It was that 'burst' of energy that gave me pause. Rested, I get a LOT done. Forcing myself to do things during the days when I can't rest - it becomes more and more difficult and sleep itself less and less possible. I guess I should talk to a doctor about that but I'll be darned if I know which one to do it with. My GP is a good guy for normal problems but stratigising around constant (and fluxuating) pain isn't something he's trained for. The neurosurgeon, when I see him in January, will be interested in his own area of practise - surgery. I guess I should ask him for a referral to, what? A pain management specialist? A physical therapist who specialises in spinal injury? (As opposed to a PT tech who follows the instructions set out by a medical provider's computer program of care.) I don't know. It isn't really something I can talk to Bossman about. He's still not really in a place where he can accept that I'm not the same strong woman he's known all of his life. Initiating a discussion about that isn't really productive. I'd like to try to find some good answers that I can put into practise without smearing my insufficiencies in his face.
I've been happily looking at the mail every day, cheerful at the anticipation of holiday cards. Some of them are so nice! It is hard, it seems, to find nice cards this year so I am especially appreciative of the ones that come to us. And got a giggle from one of them - it is the same card design that I'd sent to that couple one or two years ago. The classics, they stay around... and today while at the drug store I found a very good card to send to a friend who I owe, simply owe, one to for the hideous monstrosity that she sent to us a couple of years ago. I'm still playing catch-up on that one.
For the last couple of weeks I've been more careful about the amount of time I spend on my feet. I have become more aware now of the pain that sets in when I've been up too long and somewhat bemused by the knowledge that I was just plain unaware of it for so long. I honestly have no idea when it started happening. It crept up on my. I know that I've avoided the behaviours that I am now aware trigger the pain for quite a while, so I am assuming that it has been there for at least as long as I've been modifying my behaviour. That puzzles me when I think about it... how easily we can just grow used to something and not even be aware of it. It has been a couple of years, I think, since I was nonchalant about walking a great deal or doing heavy physical labour. And I've backed off from cooking much, or even something minor such as getting all the laundry done in one gulp - and in all that time, my avoidance has triggered guilt and shame for 'being lazy'. "Each one of us has got an inner voice which comments, challenges, criticises or else encourages us with each and every activity we do at different times of the day." My inner voice has been naggingly loud about my laziness and in the course of the last couple of years, so insidious has it been that expressions on my husband's face, or his noisy exhalations of breath during a discussion (or when, for example, I decline attending something that we once would go to together) have been interpreted by me as a mirror of my own negative inner judgement.
So now, when I finally actually know that I have a physical problem to address, one that does, indeed, require that I modify my daily behaviour, it is still difficult for me to shake that disapproving inner voice. I end up feeling defensive and prickily. And apologetic, too, which then leads me to resentment. I'm not sure how to work on eliminating that from my emotional lexicon but it needs to be addressed. This disability that I have - it isn't going to magically get better. Oh, I'm not giving up and crawling in a corner! But neither am I going to beat myself up for acknowledging that I have a limitation and there isn't something morally or eithically wrong with me for accepting it. When I have flashes of acceptance, I've been able to stratagise (hey, I spelled that wrong, didn't I?) for ways to make things easier to get done. I have a kitchen stool, for one, that has been sitting forgotten in a dark corner of our living room for a couple of years. If I pulled it out, I could sit on it and maybe even wash a full load of dishes without having to take two or three breaks before I was done. (Ever notice how long it takes to wash dishes by hand? I hadn't. Not until recently. I just berated myself for nearly always having a little pile of dishes off to the side of the sink. Using the dishwasher - bending up and down to load and unload it - is less appealing than standing at the sink. Except that I can't stand there, that is, for more than 10 minutes at a time.)
Anyway.
I couldn't sleep last night and finally in desperation took the maximum dose of medicine prescribed to me for that problem. And fell asleep sometime after eight o'clock this morning. Until six this evening... almost ten hours of solid uninterrupted rest. I woke up refreshed (although still kinda groggy) and in the mood to get things done. Laundry, errands, clearing off piles on the table... It was that 'burst' of energy that gave me pause. Rested, I get a LOT done. Forcing myself to do things during the days when I can't rest - it becomes more and more difficult and sleep itself less and less possible. I guess I should talk to a doctor about that but I'll be darned if I know which one to do it with. My GP is a good guy for normal problems but stratigising around constant (and fluxuating) pain isn't something he's trained for. The neurosurgeon, when I see him in January, will be interested in his own area of practise - surgery. I guess I should ask him for a referral to, what? A pain management specialist? A physical therapist who specialises in spinal injury? (As opposed to a PT tech who follows the instructions set out by a medical provider's computer program of care.) I don't know. It isn't really something I can talk to Bossman about. He's still not really in a place where he can accept that I'm not the same strong woman he's known all of his life. Initiating a discussion about that isn't really productive. I'd like to try to find some good answers that I can put into practise without smearing my insufficiencies in his face.
