Managing Expectations

 

Today marking the turning of the sun - the solstice.  I saw this for about 5 minutes before the sun rose high enough above the clouds that all we are left with is another grey dreary day.

Which kind of matches my mood, frankly.

I've been struggling - again - with my body and pain levels that are difficult to manage.  Yesterday I sent an email to the pain clinic outlining the past weeks, bringing the doctor up-to-date with the changes that have been happening.

While I didn't get to this place in an instance through sudden injury but a lifetime of wear and tear, I still feel like I am 'young' enough to heal and recover.  My body disagrees.

However, I have a telephone appointment for tomorrow morning to discuss things with the doctor and the clerk has already booked me in for another SI injection for early in the new year.

So, Jan. 9 I have dry needling (ouch) and Jan 10 I have the SI injection (less ouch, but still need to do light duties for about 3-5 days afterwards to let the injection work).

I was going to tell them I could wait, then decided if I'm going to need to do 'light duties' for each of those procedures?  I might as well get the double whammy and recover from both at once.

After the first two dry needling treatments (and if you can't take pain, I don't recommend them, because OUCH) I was beginning to see improvement and hope grew making me feel like I was finally (FINALLY) on the road to, well, recovery would be too big a word, but improvement was great.

And then I had an allergic reaction that knocked me right off my feet and I was even worse than I had been.  It's been a couple of weeks of me, following Nike's advice to Just Do It, putting my head down, putting one foot in front on the other, stubbornly getting through each day.

I increased the naltrexone dose to 3 mg a day, then found out the pharmacy would not give me more than the prescription called for in a month, which meant I would run out of meds before I could get more.  Having gone through the transition from opioids to naltrexone and not wanting to repeat that period of no pain mitigation whatsoever, I wrote up the pain diary/update and sent it.

Given the state of health care generally, I didn't want to wait until after the holidays to get things moving, and imagine my surprise when I received a return email this morning giving me a telephone appointment for tomorrow morning, and a date for the injection.

If I weren't so damn exhausted from playing whack-a-mole with pain flares, I could weep.  Instead I just gratefully mark the dates in my calendar and hope like hell the tiny improvements I have been seeing over the last few days will grow into bigger steps towards some kind of functionality.

The other day I was chatting with another weaver, about the same age as me, going through much tougher health issues than I'm dealing with and her strength to keep going has given me encouragement to keep going, too.  If she can keep getting to the loom in spite of all her challenges, well, so can I.

But I no longer aspire to do what I did even 3 years ago.  That ship appears to have sailed.  So I draw the horizons of my life inwards, let go of aspirations to weave more than I currently am, wave goodbye to friends who travel, claim my space in my home, my studio.  When I can help others, I will.  But it will have to be on my terms.

Because my body has said 'no'.  That's it.  Just...'no'.  And after decades of my body saying 'no' and me saying 'yes, you can', I now must listen to it.

There was a cartoon strip called For Better of for Worse and at one point the mom, Elly, decides to go back to work.  She finds it extremely difficult to manage work and keeping her house neat and tidy and all the other family members fed and to their various activities.  As she rails against the fact that she can't do it all, her spouse says that maybe she should adjust her expectations.

So, time for me to adjust mine...unfortunately, easier said than done...