Chronic pain
Lighten up Mondays
Pain humor, just because.
- Many years ago, the best painkiller was ice; it was particularly effective if you poured whiskey over it.
- Throwback Thursday reminds me of when I only had to take one medication.
- Being sick is just your body’s way of saying you’re way to awesome and you need to slow down so everyone else can catch up.
- If you still have energy after walking up the stairs, your opinion about chronic pain is irrelevant.
- Said the doctor to his patient, handing him a bottle of pills: “I want you to take one of these every day until I think of something else.”
- My immune system attacks itself, what does yours do?
- You know you’re in pain when the sun is too loud.
- “But you don’t look sick.” “Please tell me what sick looks like and I’ll try to do better next time.”
- Why are there never any good side effects? Just once I’d like to read a medication bottle that says, “May cause extreme sexiness.”
- I’m not one to brag, but I totally got out of bed today.
- Where does it hurt? I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.
Where do you find peace?
Do you find peace within the circle of your family; or does meditation or prayer, an inspirational book, or music fill your soul? Wherever the source – how do you keep that peace from slipping away?
Certainly when we’re exposed to sorrowful or earth-shattering news, any semblance of peace and calm seem to disappear, such as: acts of terrorism – both domestic and abroad; heartless school shootings; bigotry and hatred; and even devastating illness. How many times has your armor been pierced by such circumstances?
Too many to count. So how do we find peace amongst the chaos?
We can find peace in many small ways – probably the easiest way to do so is to acknowledge the beauty that surrounds us. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a creationist or an evolutionist, the beauty you see is the same. It’s always refreshing when I walk through my local plant nursery, Molbaks, to see the intricacies of flowers and their natural, yet seemingly unrealistic, colors. How did that happen? How can so much detail just happen and we had nothing to do with it? I relish the peace I feel when roaming the rows and rows of flowers and I capture that moment and take it home with me.
And the colors of sunrises and sunsets – what a joy to behold! Even though my house is located in such a way as to not be able to directly see the sun’s rising and setting, I still have the privilege of seeing its aftereffects in the pink and ruby colors of the sky. My mother’s favorite color was pink, so when the sky is beautifully colored in that tint, I credit my mother for this natural artwork, somehow executed from her heavenly resting place.
Celebrating even the smallest of victories in one’s life. Time and again I remind myself to acknowledge the small goodnesses and victories in my life. I learned this practice shortly after having a fairly major orthopedic surgery several years ago. The recovery and rehabilitation were lengthy so I had to take comfort in even the smallest signs of improvement so that discouragement didn’t creep in to rob me of the positive steps I had made towards recovery.
So too is it important to pay attention to all the emotional windfalls that come our way. A huge lottery windfall – such as recently happened (December 2013) in California and Georgia – isn’t the type of emotional windfall I’m talking about. We can experience far more authentic emotions that are not tied to money or things. Someone greets me with a smile or has a word of encouragement that I absolutely needed at that moment? That feeds my soul. I greet someone else with a smile and a hug? Even better – now I’m paying it forward! It’s been said many times before that the richest and longest lasting gifts are those that don’t cost a cent. As trite as it may sound, it’s still absolutely true.
Where or how does one find peace when hit with a wall of hurt – whatever that hurt may look like? In my experience, I have to force myself to look away from the hurt/pain/stress/negativity in order to clearly see some peaceful element, regardless of how small, that will convince me that all is not lost, because I still have this, whatever “this” may be. When we consciously turn away from the wall of hurt, we then have the ability to find some element of peace, somewhere, in our purview. That doesn’t mean that we ignore what is required to resolve the hurt that came our way, but we make a conscious decision to redirect our focus elsewhere so that all the focus isn’t on the hurtful things that have come our way.
Dona Nobis Pacem. I really like this blog entry entitled, Dona Nobis Pacem, from a blog written by Kathy that focuses on her quest to find peace after the death of her mom to pancreatic cancer. To be sure – finding peace is a journey, it’s not just a decision one makes – and Kathy’s article addresses the work required to attain peace. But initially she had to make a decision to simply start on that peace-finding journey, and doing so, she’s nearing her quest. I hope you will visit Kathy’s site and take the time to also watch the video she attached that highlights the song Dona Nobis Pacem – Give Us Peace.
What are YOUR Lack-Of-Customer-Service Pet Peeves?
Here are just a couple of mine.
Today I experienced the inevitable straw that broke the camel’s back regarding poor customer service that inspired me to write this article which, I warn you, will be full of complaints and negative energy.
I’ll start off with the incident that inspired the diatribe you’re about to read:
Grocery check-out lines. Purchased my weekly dose of grocery items today – a mere $225 worth. From the start of the transaction to its bitter end, the checker didn’t utter one word. No baggers were in sight so I started to bag my own groceries, even though there were two employees standing five feet from me at the self-checkout area with nothing to do other than to watch this Baby Boomer bag her own groceries. (Bagging groceries by employees is still a common practice at most supermarkets in Washington State, including this one.) The transaction ended with the checker putting a couple remaining items into a bag, handing the receipt to me, logging off his register, and walking away. Mind you, all my grocery bags still remained on the checkstand counter, leaving me no option but to personally place them in my grocery cart. I feel a letter to the manager forming in my brain – not the first letter I’ve written to grocery store managers.
Assembly line doctor visits. I’m convinced that doctors are required to meet a certain patient quota per day – at least my doctor is. The last few times I’ve visited her, she’s rushed me through the visit, even going so far as to do the following: 1) using a hand gesture to hurry me up – picture her hand going in horizontal circles in front of her while I’m trying to explain my reason for the visit; and 2) two weeks after major spine surgery this same doctor expressing her impatience by saying, “Hurry Irene, this appointment needs to end!” Sorry to have messed up your day, doc! How callous of me for talking to you about my horrific and painful surgery experience!
A surgeon’s god-complex. I just have to mention the aforementioned surgery experience. A neurosurgeon operated on me a year ago to perform an anterior cervical spine disc replacement and vertebral fusion: a four hour surgery, one night in ICU, a full year of recovery. At my two-month post-surgery appointment with this god-surgeon, I explained how difficult it had been going through such a drastic surgical experience. His comment, and I quote, “It wasn’t that drastic of a surgery.” Ahem. My comment, and I quote, “It may have been the 5000th cervical spine surgery you’ve attended but it was my first!” Imagine him minimizing my surgery, thereby dismissing my discomfort and recovery experience?! Grrrrrr.
Before my blood pressure rises to unsafe levels – which would take a lot because my normal BP is 96/65 – I’ll stop right here to let you vent about YOUR frustrating lack-of-customer-service experiences.
Living: the ultimate team sport 