painful things

When you suffer from a chronic pain, you tend not to really talk about it. If i acquire a temporary pain somewhere, ie. headache, or a massive papercut (quite frequent in my job) i tend to moan about it quite a lot. The reason for this is not modesty, it is simply because if you suffer from a constant pain, that you are used to adapting your life around, it becomes completely yours. When you think about something absolutely constantly, the desire to mention it is completely removed. This begins because you feel stifled by it, like you can't explain the impact it's having on you, or how it makes you feel so there's absolutely no point in trying, what i mean by that is that, to convey the different feelings and effects pain has on you, you'd have to talk about it constantly, as it effects you constantly, so obviously you aren't going to do that. This is followed by a very British feeling that i have in absolute abundance of not wanting to sound like a moaning twat, no one likes a complainer, and also the feeling that people don't believe you anyway.
Sometimes it really gets on top of you, although i find it does less the longer it goes on. The frustration overwhelms you and you cry very loudly and very hard, shouting a bit in order to get it all out in one go! This will happen usually at the weekend to me, as it's the encroachment of pain on your leisure time that really, really upsets you. It's easier to handle when you're at work cause you're busy, and distracted, and you don't like it there anyway.
It upsets me that I can't go to the gym, that i find it very difficult to swim, although i am assured it's good for me to do these things, i physically can't. It's easy to tell someone what will help their pain, but truthfully the only thing i have ever found that alleviates it is alcohol, and that's because i don't take drugs, and i very, very rarely drink at all now, partly cause i take so much medicine.
Medicine is perhaps the thing that upsets me most about the whole thing. I can feel that i fill my body with it, with opiates, i feel sick, dizzy, and the relief is not enough to warrant the effect on my liver i'm sure! But you carry on taking medicine cause it's all that you can do!
The Pain Clinic at Addenbrokes are brilliant, easily the best clinic that I've attended, I think that this is partly cause it's a dumping ground for people who don't have an easily diagnosible problem, so it feels like a last chance saloon, the dr's and nurses there rarely see dramatic results, they just help you live a bit easier, and they are very kind because of this. I am by far the youngest person that I have ever seen there, i feel sometimes that the older people don't take me seriously, especially in the 'Pain Seminar' s that we attend to talk about pain management, but really it's me who resents them, they've had 60 years of life, often more, without pain, i had 20 before mine started, it's not fair i think, then i stop myself because that is most definitely NOT the point and we're all in it together, it makes me even sadder to see an old person in pain, they need the mobility more, and anyway, as my mum pointed out, it's all about quality of life, and everyone deserves that. It makes me passionately love the NHS, and feel very thankful for it, despite its many faults.
Anyway, the 'Denervation' op is booked in for the 27th march now. I am a bit nervous, they are going to kill my nerves with an electric current. It's the hollow needle that I'm scared of! BUT I am very, very thankful that they are trying for me and helping me, it's very humbling.

There's a scene in one of our favourite childhood films, Little Nezha defeats the dragon kings, where Nezha, a cheeky Chinese mythological being, removes the spine from one of the dragons and then uses it to whip him and tame him. My constant fantasy is for someone to do the same to me, remove my spine and my fat leg nerves, but not whip me with them.

On another note, I finished my book, about the Road Hill murder, bloody f ing hell, it was pretty scary, i had to pull the covers over my ears the night before last in order to sleep. It's pretty interesting and exciting right up to the last page where you find out a mental secret...woooo!
Those Victorians, they were so f ing mental, so clever and so SOOO thick at the same time. Constantly held back from progress by the class system. Not wanting to rummage in a gentleman's drawers for fear of scandal, even if they think he's a murderer. There's one bit where two policemen allow the owner of the house to LOCK THEM IN THE KITCHEN all night the day after the murder!! They don't even complain! There's been a murder and they let the suspect lock them in the kitchen to keep an eye on things, leaving said suspect to go about doing whatever they like, hiding things, cleaning things, cause the local police are locked in THEIR kitchen! idiots...