I'm closing the door on the 'reasoning rooms' and I'm not going to investigate what might have caused a sudden flare. 'Soula, let's not go there. Don't enter that routine. Don't walk towards the dead end. Don't waste your time... again!' 'You've wasted years, Soula. Over a decade in fact thinking in rooms that provided no answers. They are mostly empty – blank walls, no windows, no air to breath!'
Life's pace is vastly slower if you are living with chronic pain. Anticipated outcomes from things like new treatments, explanations about causes of pain, pain research, realisations about personal ideas relating to my own experience all take months, years and even over a decade to arrive. Yesterday was the day I finally received some closure about the wicked Lyrica. There's been a build-up of medication reporting this past year but none of it hit the spot like The Project's report. I love the reporting on this show – it's one of the few programs that brings me to the TV. While watching last night, I got that bullseye feeling: I'm not crazy! How often does a person living with pain come to this blissful realisation? Not often enough I can tell you.
When I presented at the Royal College of General Practitioners Dealing With Addiction Conference in 2018 (GPADD18) I was astounded to learn the stats on overdoses. I was horrified to learn [...]
8am – 12noon tradies here ‘fixing’ heating/cooling unit (making noise, causing disruption and breaking much-needed silence). + Phone calls, all day (important, relating to mum’s future care plan). + Huge tree on [...]
I keep on learning about my sensitivities – it’s mind-boggling! Had someone told me I’d feel the difference between a smooth-surfaced road and a rough-surfaced road while travelling in a car I [...]
I often have some very interesting questions about living with chronic pain. Usually, they are questions relating to details that I’ve never thought of discussing, but they are so important. This page [...]
Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) has one of the best gallery gift shops. I saw this fantastic jigsaw puzzle of Friday Kahlo in [...]
I assumed the pain ‘industry’ was still learning about the management and treatment of chronic pain and that’s why communication was so poor. I assumed it wasn’t like that for other severe [...]
My endless efforts to find a way to get back into regular yoga practice keep falling on their head. Pardon my pun... but I am hopeful FeetUp may help with that problem. Prior to living in the land of pelvic pain, I lived in the land of bliss practising yoga regularly – four times per week! For 45 minutes I was part dog, part warrior, a cat, a cow, even a pelican at times. I became a tree, saluted the sun and enjoyed many various poses. To end my routine, I'd slide up into shoulder stand (8 minutes), then send my toes passed my head in plough pose (for another 8 minutes) before unravelling to a corpse in Savasana pose. That was before I went for a walk!
Foam! I Found Foam! Am I excited today! As I progress this path of pain, I retain my non-negotiable pointers – one of which is my need for my custom made seating aid. I would love to ditch this damn thing from under my backside and from my clutch every time I go out for a seated event, but it's just too valuable for my capacity. Figuring out the big 'dangers in me' (remember we talked about DIMS and SIMS?) has been key to my pacing forward.
