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I remember friends, family, practitioners asking me how I was... "how am I?", I didn't know who I was let alone how I was!!!!!!!! I couldn't cross the street, had to turn spell check on my computer, couldn't speak from the piercing sound of my own voice bouncing in my own ears, couldn't go out, couldn't coordinate myself, I thought everyone who drove was going to kill themselves I was so disorientated all the time, and I couldn't choose between three apples if you asked me to! I slept like a dead person, had no energy, I took a huge dive into the deepest of caves. Actually to sum it up folks, I was depressed... yes, on the anti depressants. That was enough for me to see I didn't need that sort of medication. There had to be another way and I found it.
Chronic pain is a waste of life’s precious time, its a huge hold up. But if you have to deal with it then you have to find a way to cope through the awful journey and survive it. Before my precious implant (Professor Teddy I love you!!), I couldn’t move much without pain, everything hurt and it hurt all the time. And yet, my gorgeous friends and family kept telling me ‘but you look so good for someone who’s in pain all day!’ (Uum… thanks??).
Chia Moan's painting Shrinking World aims to shed light on the effects of living with severe and persistent pain. Moan was among artists who spoke to pain sufferers and says she remembers one patient who said she felt like Alice disappearing down the rabbit hole, with the opening at the top growing smaller and smaller.
My creativity has been one of my main coping mechanisms through my chronic pain life. It's the place I go to feel free, release the steam, express my pain, and to get distracted to the point of pain! But it's worth it every time. There isn't a lot I can achieve with my capacity so one drawing, one painting over months, one post on my blog... anything, it's all worth it.
How many definitions for pain signals are out there? It doesn't stop and I have to be really honest here, it all sounds like hogwash for a person who was unstoppable and prior to her injury had the stamina of a bull (as a friend once described me).
It felt like a miracle and took all of about 15 minutes for the phsyiotherapist (at the chronic pelvic pain clinic at the Women's here in Melbourne Australia) to give me her French infused explanation that my pain was most probably coming from my Pudendal Nerve (yes, a name, I had a name!). It took another 15mins for her to put me in on my back (I never lay on my back as it was too painful) and apply a pressure/postural technique that switched my pain off! (Yes, OFF... calm, silence, stillness, roar gone, no spasm, quiet, peace)... unbelievable but this is true.
The most supported I've felt is when I've come across a practitioner who listens and wants to work with me specifically. I mean really take note of what's going on and [...]
Its limiting living in a birdcage!!! But when you are injured, unable to work, need to rely on a system for money, you don't want to risk losing your only source of income. So you sit, gagged, locked up, don't attempt or try anything and that can be most damaging. How did I survive in the birdcage?
A few months into my implant and I felt like I was human again... my senses were back and it was incredible!! That thick pain fog was lifted and I could taste, smell, see, concentrate, focus, remember, listen, think, plan, dream, enjoy, laugh, read, oh what bliss!!!!
