Pain trek

Everything came to a head on Thursday morning; I dragged myself to my Healing Journey workshop at Wellspring and felt overcome by depression and panic. Luckily, I was surrounded by wonderful counsellors, who let me cry and vent in my small group. One of them connected me with another who has a lot of experience with pain management, who called me at home and stressed that I had to step up the pain meds. I should have had enough brains to do this on my own, but I've just been so stubburn about withstanding the pain until the last possible moment, waiting eight hours before taking more Tylenol 3s, prejudiced against the idea of taking opioids, afraid of more constipation. The counsellor convinced me to stay ahead of the pain and take the T3s every four hours regardless, and that night I slept most of the night, getting up only once to take pills; last night I slept pretty well (on a foam wedge with tons of strategically placed pillows and a heating pad) and pretty late. What a relief.

The counsellor expressed surprise that my doctors had not directed me to a pain management specialist, and I guess I'm surprised, too, just as I'm surprised at how thoroughly I fell apart after three nights of misery.

Yesterday I visited a massage therapist for a lymphatic massage -- Dr. Google tells me that I have "truncal" lymphedema, because my breast and the tissue around it are swollen and uncomfortable -- but it didn't amount to much because lying down prompted this pain just below my ribs that makes me nuts, and I had to stop. But I walked the 30 minutes to the therapist's office with no trouble at all! Later I went to my family doctor and we kind of kissed and made up -- I told him that I have been feeling not well cared for, and that I've developed that stupid guilt we sick people get about going to the GP too often and being perceived as a hypochondriac pest. He was very kind and assured me that I should be coming by more often. He says there is a pain management clinic at my hospital and that there are slow-release versions of pain meds, which would really make my life easier. Yesterday I took two T3s and promptly forgot I'd taken them, then took more. I was flying. So it would be nice if I didn't have to take them every four hours.

In the meantime, I am now dealing with a brand-new set of symptoms that involve difficulty swallowing -- something else to fret about! At least I am sleeping, though I'm terribly dopey. For the first time, the ache in my ribs has begun to resemble what Dr. Lee told me bone mets would feel like; it's like something is gripping me around my middle. I feel like I have my underwire bra on, but two sizes too small, even when I don't have a bra on at all.

Let's see if I can come up with a more amusing angle to report from: Healing Journey involves some visualization exercises, which I'm not convinced will work, but I'm not convinced they won't, either, so what the hell. We're supposed to imagine an "inner healer": a presence of some sort, whether animal or human or a ball of light or whatever works for you. You kind of talk things over with this entity -- I haven't gone into it very far yet. I don't have much of a visual imagination, so I was struggling to come up with something, when our counsellor suggested it could be something or somebody very powerful. For some reason the first thing that sprang into my head was Commander Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I'm a fan, I must confess, and I watch every day at 4 p.m. (though I'm shocked at how crappy the first season seems now). Many years ago my brother (I think) gave me a little Commander Data figurine as a joke Christmas gift.

So I plan to make Data my inner healer. I like his combination of super-human strength and gentleness and his non-judgmental nature. I'm supposed to go to a place in my head that feels special, and find my inner healer within a structure, for example, a wise old woman inside a cabin. So get this: Commander Data in a shuttlecraft on the banks of the Spanish River. If nothing else, it makes me laugh.