Driving Me to Distraction

So, pain.

Yeah.

Here's how it started: about two or three days a month, I had pain. Lots of pain. Then, those same days, instead of having lots of pain, I had soul-ripping apart pain. But nothing in between.

Then, about two months ago, I started having pain in between, but like little pain. Not so bad. Then, those days grew to be all the days and they are punctuated by the Pain Days, which are I don't know how often, but more often than two or three days out of month.

And today, my friends and colleagues is a Pain Day.

Yesterday, I was fine all day. More or less fine. I had an ache and a twinge, but manageable. Then I went home and almost as I was walking in the door, I felt my body being torn apart. Cleaved. Lacerated. Ripped asunder.

I made it through. Like parents do. I fed the kids, tucked everyone in bed and then curled up in my big red chair and pretended like nothing existed outside of the chair. The chair is the key to this working. I can't do it in bed. Or on the couch. The chair is my place when I feel bad.

I pulled a blanket over my lap and took two Benadryl, because I was out of Tylenol PM and someone once told me that it's just Tylenol and Benadryl. Eventually, I got tired enough to go to bed. But between, I couldn't do anything.

I couldn't sort laundry or read. I watched some TV, but I don't remember any of it. I'm not even 100% sure of what I watched.

And I thought I would sleep it off. But here I am. Pain Day 2.0.

And I can't concentrate on anything. Not on my work or even on writing this. You should see the spellcheck. I'll fix that before I hit publish, but I probably won't do anything else, because proofing takes concentration.

And I have miles to go before I sleep tonight. Grocery, kids, yadda-yadda.

And it's just made me think: I have had this pain for a year. It's been one year since I first started having pain days, the not so very bad ones. In less than a year, it's gone from zero to sixty on the 1-10 pain scale, and I cannot manage this mess. I mean, if I could, I'd rip my uterus out right this very second and stitch myself back together with stash yarn. And it's been a year. I know that some people have chronic pain from various things and it lasts years and years and you know...

I just want to give those people a puppy and a medal. Because how in the every-loving pants do you manage to get through one day and into the next? Let alone have a career and raise kids and write books and have people over and volunteer. How? Because right now, right this second, all I want to do is throw my head back and scream until my lungs hurt as bad as my abdomen. I want my screams to rip my throat raw and crack open the corners of my mouth.

Because then I could be distracted away from this pain, instead of by it. Because then, I could point to something and say "This is what is wrong. I am not making this up. It really hurts just as bad as it looks."

And tomorrow, I will be back to the nagging sensation of discomfort. I hope. And all this will seem so silly and I'll be glad I went to the grocery and didn't wait until the weekend. Tomorrow, I'll hold my head up and I'll laugh and everything will be fine. Just as fine as it can be.

I hope.

Because, I've seen the pain grow and I guess that one of my biggest fears is that it's just going to keep growing and someday and then tomorrow will just be another today.

*Less than 30 days until the surgery that makes this go away forever. Less than 30 days. Even if they are all like today, I can survive 30 of them, right?