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My head hurts. Again. Still.
And yes, Mom, I’ve taken something.
In fact, since Monday morning when the weather changed and I first woke up feeling like someone had beat me in the face and back of neck with a baseball bat, I have taken at least:
- 6 Walgreen’s pseudo “dayquil” cold and sinus capsules
- 14 Ibuprofen
- 4 Sudafed
- 12 Excedrin Migraine
- 9 Extra Strength Tylenol
And my head STILL hurts.
I won’t bore you with the details of a lifetime of chronic sinus issues, one of which being chronic headaches that on most days register 3-5 on the classic 1-10 pain scale but have, for the last five days now, courtesy of the lovely Midwest spring weather, awakened me in the morning at an 8 or a 9 and leveled off at around a 7 for the remainder of every day. For a week.
And I wondered (and beat myself up) for years why I was so depressed and detached from life… Hello.
I recently read Chocolate and Vicodin: My Quest For Relief From The Headache That Wouldn’t Go Away, by Jennette Fulda, who woke up one day around three years ago with a headache out of the blue, that has, as the title suggests, not gone away. There was much in her pursuit for healing that I could relate to—the endless advice giving of everyone around her, the hesitancy to hope, the point of desperation that would cause her to take a deep breath and crawl back again into the presence of yet another medical professional, not knowing whether or not they’d take her seriously, not knowing whether or not they could, or would, even help her. I’ve been there. For over 20 years on my own accord. I get it.
What is difficult to relate to, of course, is the newness of her pain. I come from a different vantage point because I can’t remember ever NOT having a headache. She can. As to which is better or worse, I could not say. They are each their own form of awful. Just different awfuls, is all.
Jennette writes about this awfulness in an honest light. “My life was awful in many ways, but I had to make the best of it,” she tells us. “I was trying to live the best awful life possible.” There are days when this is easier than others. Days when you almost forget your head hurts and you feel just the slightest bit nauseous, when the sun is shining and the temperature is neither too hot nor too cold and the barometric pressure is just right and there is no weather on the horizon and you don’t even think about the slight tightness in your shoulders and the tenderness in your forehead and you feel almost kind of sort of normal and healthy. Those days it’s easier to smile and laugh and joke with my children and spouse, though still with some degree of conscious intentionality.
Then, there are days like I’ve had this week. Days when I WAKE UP in intense pain, my shoulders and neck already in knots, my face throbbing and tender to the touch. Days when people ask as soon as they see me, Are you okay? You don’t seem yourself. Days when my daughter senses something is on the radar and becomes hyper-alert to my moods, questioning, Are you upset, Momma? Days when I don’t want to get out of bed, when I just want to sleep with the heating pad wrapped around the upper half of my body and not wake up until someone has finally developed a head-transplant procedure that will finally, FINALLY cure this incurable curse. Those days, awful is just plain AWFUL.
Living with awful is, well, yeah. Awful. But there are different variations on how we all live with awful, especially in the light of chronic awfulness. Jennette writes:
I was beginning to realize I did not necessarily need to be cured to move on with my life. Ever since I’d gone to the pain seminar, I’d been ruminating on the concept of pain versus suffering. I hadn’t pursued it that far because I’d kept myself distracted with doctor visits, but it felt as though there was an answer in there somewhere, even if I didn’t know what the question was. Instead of living in pain, perhaps I could learn to live with pain, as if it were my partner instead of my master. It would always be there, but I didn’t have to let it boss me around. I might always be in pain, but I didn’t always have to suffer.
When I first read this, I wondered how it was that she was able to get to this place and I wasn’t. Was it because it had only been two years of struggle as opposed to 40? Because she’d exhausted every possible avenue in those two years while I had given up long ago out of lack of time and energy and hope and financial resources? Because she didn’t believe in a God who could do something about this but doesn’t, therefore excusing her from that particular theological wrestling match? Because she was just a better, more positive person?
But as I re-read this just now, typing it into my computer, light bulbs began to go off in my throbbing head and things suddenly became clear in the light of their glow. This was not a foreign concept. I do this. This IS how I live, most of the time. The pain is always there, but until it hits a seven or above, I rule the pain, the pain doesn’t rule me. I may always be in pain, but I am not always suffering.
Not always. There is hope in this. My best possible awful life is better than I thought, even on day six of a scale-topping pain in my head. I”ll take it. For now.
Especially if it comes with chocolate and vicodin.