Pain Changes Everything

Anger and agony

Are better than misery

Trust me I've got a plan

When the lights go off you will understand

Pain, without love

Pain, I can't get enough

Pain, I like it rough

'Cause I'd rather feel pain than nothing at all

~3 Days Grace

    

Pain changes everything. I am talking about chronic physical pain, but it colors every aspect of your life. Physical, mental, spiritual, it affects all of you. It changes the very chemistry of your brain. How can you bear up under the constant nagging pain that never really leaves your body? Even in moments of great joy, ecstasy even, it waits in the background, baring its teeth.

I have a large group of friends, via social networking, who share the difficulties of living with pain on a daily basis. It limits their mobility, some to the point that they rarely leave their homes. I have met a couple of them, and I have a couple more that I know right here in town with me.  We have anxieties over pain levels, and sometimes we are afraid that we cannot bear the load of living, on top of coping. Coping is not really living. It is like the commercial for migraine relief, that talks about living a maybe life, and that is exactly what it becomes. Maybe I’ll join you for lunch or meet you for a drink next week. It depends upon how I feel when I wake up that day. Some of us even look quite well, and others do not understand how someone can not look sick at all, yet be unable to retain a “normal” life. This frustrates us even more, because we know that you don’t understand, and there are never adequate words to describe what it feels like with parts of your life gone forever. I used to love to waterski. I used to enjoy motorcycle riding and nice long hikes. I used to…

Sometimes I don’t even like the person that I have become. I don’t complain all the time, because I know that people get tired of hearing it, but sometimes, my focus narrows to the point that all I can feel, all I can see, is that fucking pain that will not leave me alone! So we hibernate. We withdraw into our own little worlds, curl up in a fetal position and wait for the pain to level off, so that we can at least cope with it. My coping skills are actually pretty good for someone who has dealt with pain every day for 11 years. It was bad enough at times that I would fantasize how to make it go away forever. It calmed me tremendously to know that I always had that choice to say I can’t handle it anymore, I’m outta here! I’m not suicidal by nature. I know that it would be the last of the last resorts, and I have spoken with several counselors over the years about this technique. It actually has some mental health benefits, but thankfully I have not needed it for a number of years.

For the most part, I have lived with it long enough to build a life in spite of it. I have my family to sustain me. When they are not around, my animals give me a reason to get out of bed. There are feelings, moods, activities that I miss so much that it creates pain on top of pain. I try not to dwell on it. I am able to put all that out of reach when I am working. It is not about me then, and the focus shifts to the client. That is one of the coping skills, to busy at least the mind on someone else’s issues. There a many different coping skills, none of which work all the time.

I would be very interested to hear about how other people cope with the fear, the anger, disappointments, frustrations and physical aspects of pain. Please weigh in if you feel so inclined. I’m sure this is not my last blog about pain. Sometimes it is all I can think about. The eyes always tells out the soul.

All My Exes Live In Texas

As I have mentioned before, I tried this blogging thing a few years ago. I kept one at the old Yahoo site, and a few over at the mostly defunct Myspace. They weren't bad, they just lacked direction. The same could probably be said for me at the time, but adjusting to not being able to work was a long and difficult process. Anyway, for those of you who didn't read those, no biggie, not much to explain to put you on my page.

Sirens on the Catclaw is a bad pun of sorts. Lorelei was the Siren of the Rheine. The beautiful mermaid, who sat on a rock, in some pretty treacherous waters, sang and brushed her long hair, luring sailors onto the rocks, and to their deaths. There is a Lorelei rock in Germany, and it comes from this very old legend. In Abilene, Texas, where I was born, there are no running rivers. There are a series of creeks, sometimes flowing, sometimes not, and a few small lakes, nothing to write home about. The one closest to my house is Cat Claw Creek, which one also may pass on the way to nursing home row. Old Anson Road has several nursing homes along its length, and the sound of sirens is a daily occurrence.

I had my share of “starting over” opportunities in Abilene. My brother Steve joined the Army and went to Vietnam as a medic. He was killed in action in 1968. My family of origin began to unravel. The threads were already loose and that was the beginning of the end. My parents got an opportunity to trade our small home for a larger home, only a few blocks away. By the spring of 1970 my parents had dropped all pretenses, and were getting divorced. I dealt with the loss of my brother, my sister moving in and out, parents changing houses, and dating other people. My world was blown apart. I was 10 years old. Both parents remarried, Dad for 5 turbulent years, and Mom stayed with my Stepdad for nearly 20. My Mom and Edd moved to Plains, Texas for a couple of years. That’s a whole blog or 12 on its own, but the lesson that ties with this blog was that I fell in love for the first time. If you think puppy love isn’t the real thing, doesn’t rip your heart out and make you want to die, you have never been a broken hearted 14 year old girl. That same broken, extremely vulnerable woman child returned home to Abilene, and moved into Dad’s house, old bedroom, and tried to fit in. Dad’s marriage was in the process of major meltdown. I had built some majorly serious walls around me, but my self-esteem had taken some near mortal blows, and I ended up in a situation where I was raped by a “date” the autumn after my 15^th birthday. I found comfort in my many male friends, but did not date much after that. My walls were like entire castle fortresses by then. I had a male friend that I became very close to. His parents moved to their retirement home the summer before our senior year. Their attempts to get us to give it time, to explore other options, only made us more determined, and at the end of that year, two weeks after high school graduation, we got married. I was 17. We moved to Waco, Texas, and began to play house, future exes in the making.

Waco Texas 1978

The Road To Healing

     The road to healing is an ongoing process. At least the road to emotional and spiritual healing is that way. The day after surgery I had a vision, an experience, hell I don't know what it was, but it was extremely real to me. I felt myself moving further and further away from where I knew myself to be; as in my own bed, sore as all get out, resting as much as possible. I began to hear voices whispering, telling me to come and be with them. The voices became more distinct. I could identify my Dad, my Grandmother, and other relatives and friends directing me with their voices. What I actually saw was a cat. A black cat, but not just any cat. It was Linda's cat, TC, whom we had and loved for many years. I wanted to go and pick him up. I wanted nothing more than to hold TC, and go into those voices that I could hear distinctly by then. I became aware of the smell of watermelon, as if it was just under my nose. I began to go backwards into my own body, to this realm, and I thrashed and wailed and tried to fight my way back to the voices. Dana came rushing in from the kitchen to see what was wrong. I was so hysterical that I could not even voice what had happened to me. I wont speculate about what actually happened, only that I had no doubt that it was a wonderful special place, and that it was not my time to be there.
     Time marches on, as it does, and the wounds began to heal. The incision was massive, and left a long scar that bisected my navel, and is devoid of feeling, on both sides, the entire length of it. I never questioned that it was a God thing. I wont ask you to believe it, you will or you wont, but I felt that there was still a purpose for me here, I just had to find what it was. I had my share of pity parties. I hibernated back here in my cavern, with the computer, tv, mini fridge and master bathroom. I had little desire to do much of anything. I was already crippled from two car wrecks, whatever it was that I needed to do, it could damn well come to me. 
     I had been doing bits and pieces of life coaching in the 3 years since I had earned my masters in counseling and human development. Mostly for no fee. I knew that I had something new to offer to clients. Life had thrown yet another hard curve ball, aimed directly at my head, and I had narrowly dodged it once again. I needed to build a proper website, put myself out there for more business, and just get better organized in general. I bucked it. Hard. I did not want anymore responsibilities. I did not want to have to care about   what anyone else was trying to muddle through, or where they needed or wanted to go. Until I fixed me, I was incapable of guiding anyone anywhere, for any reason.

The Cancer Story, Pt I

 Sirens On The Catclaw

 Starting over on starting over. May 5, 2012

The Cancer Story, Pt I

I first began this particular project, The Life Coach’s Blog, a couple of years ago, but quickly ran out of gas. The reasons were many, but basically I didn’t really know where to start, or what direction I wanted it to go. I got bogged down in details, and then basically said, screw it, and let it languish while I just tried to maintain living, day to day. Then I decided that the overall topic would be starting over, and that would be broken into subtopics. How many I still don’t know. I have started over several times, and in several different ways, from divorce, to losing almost everything, to injury and illness. I am going to dive right in, hopefully a beautiful swan dive, into starting over after having been diagnosed with a deadly disease, in my case ovarian cancer.

I knew something was wrong; my body had been giving signs, from whispers to shrill screams, that something was most certainly not alright. I mentioned symptoms to a few people, who assured me that they had had similar symptoms with menopause, and it would all even out eventually. I was only 47 years old, but had been having perimenopausal symptoms since I was around 35. My periods had slowed and then stopped, in the preceding couple of years. I was getting regular mammograms, had no reason to worry about birth control for years, since J’s vasectomy, and was not a fan of the last gynecologist I had visited, so I let it slide. Every once in a while I had a nagging thought about needing to get a pap smear and an exam, but the attendant discomfort made me dismiss it as not a priority.

The symptoms became more nagging. My abdomen was very bloated, my back hurt like it would with a kidney infection, and I just didn’t feel well. So I set up an appointment with my family doc. When I got to the office, my doc was running late, business as usual, but I was offered a chance to get out faster by seeing his nurse practitioner. I agreed, and was taken back to a room pretty quickly. That decision probably saved my life, but it didn’t feel like a revelation, only a matter of convenience. The NP, her name was Jean, was very thorough in her exam, and obviously very concerned about what she was feeling. She told me that she wanted me to see her gyn, and she left the room and made the appointment on the spot. Within a week I was headed to the appointment, after he had me give blood in a lab a few days earlier.

What he told me was that I needed to make plans for surgery in the next few days. I didn’t have a lot of time to fret about it; I was in for a pre-surgical consult at the hospital within days. I made out a will, packed a bag, and headed for the final consult with the doctor before surgery. He told me that it could be anything from benign cysts to cancer all over my body. That I might wake up with a small incision, or with no breasts and a colostomy bag, but that he would do a thorough internal exploration no matter what he found. He was partnering with a gynecological oncologist, so they would be ready for anything. I prayed a great deal, and let myself mentally explore some worst case scenarios.

The actual day of the surgery I remember very little of. Both docs were there when I came out of recovery and was taken to my room. They both said that I was actually a best case scenario, and that surgery had resolved the issues, no further treatment, like chemo or radiation was going to be necessary. There were tumors on both ovaries, so a total hysterectomy and exploration from the top of my torso to the bottom, was the worst I would endure, besides the healing process. I was hooked up to a morphine pump, so I was not really with it enough to do much deep thinking.

After a few days I was able to come home to my own bed. That night, J hand fed me watermelon and kissed my incision. To this day I find that to be the most romantic thing anyone had ever done. I felt very lucky and much loved.

(Next: The out of body experience and the road to healing)

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