Blurt - an observation.

Pain colours everything. We know that.

But I believe it has a huge impact on us as we age. Aging past sixty I mean.

I observed myself yesterday. I had lab work booked in anticipation of an appointment with my internist on Thursday. I pulled out the requisition from my medical file (I am much more organized in old age) and lurch off to the lab. Pain has been a challenge in the past week so I bring George, my trusty cane.

Only to learn I had brought the wrong requisition.

This included hormone testing so rather than tell them I had the wrong requisition with me, I underwent a session on how to correctly perform hormone testing.

Hauling - with difficulty, keeping my balance on top of George - the two unneeded and unnecessary enormous hormone jugs and all their attendant instructions all the way out to the parking lot and the safety of my car. Breathing a huge sigh of relief, I headed home, wondering how and where to dispose of these jugs.

But the day wasn’t done with me by a long shot.

Suddenly, I realized I had no memory of receiving my health card back from the technician. I called the lab, no card. Panic.

Finally, after a few hours, in despair, I looked in my wallet and there it was. No memory of receiving it or placing it carefully back in my wallet. What the hell?

I come to the conclusion that a pain filled day seriously affects the brain. There is no room for anything else. The whole focus is on keeping it together, keeping the aforementioned befuddlement away from medical observation.

The brain is on overdrive just putting one foot in front of the other with a watchful eye cast outward for the men in white coats ready to pounce.

And in case you’re wondering, there has been little to no research done on pain in old age, apart from a few offhand observations that it possibly might contribute to rapid onset of dementia as neurons firing constantly wears out an elderly brain.

Pain and fear, isolation and loneliness.

I thought to write here today. Even though I don’t really want to.

It’s the topic everyone works hard to avoid bringing into conversation.

PAIN: Chronic and severe and endless.

With the result that there is a loneliness that seeps over the sufferer. She knows no one wants to hear the same old, same old. So she lies, or covers up or uses a selection of old tropes.

Q How are you?

(1)Oh, you know.

(2)Much better than yesterday. (Lie)

Q What does the doctor say?

(1)We don’t say: Well (s)he too is sick of my calls.

(2)We mumble a selection of vagaries.

(3)Waiting for a call.

(4)Will call them today.

Along with the loneliness there’s the exhaustion of just plain dealing with life. Or not dealing.

There’s lack of sleep for one. There’s the ongoing decision of:

(1) suffering and being alert or

(2) ingesting painkillers and becoming a zombie.

Friends and relatives get impatient. I understand that.

But it really makes things far, far worse when they ask for details of the pain and it’s offered, only to be met with deadly silence or the clicks of an escape hatch being opened ("gotta run, talk soon!") and the listener vanishing.

So chronic pain is isolating for multiple reasons. We are not looking for solutions. We know all the solutions, we’ve explored many avenues, some involving more pain we can’t endure.

Out tears are in isolation along with frustration and a sense of hopelessness. And loneliness.

We are the brave.

We learn to let very few in to what is really going on. We forego, with longing,  the things we used to do in our health that we would simply take for granted. For example, I see someone walking on the street or in a movie and I go "look at that! they're walking with a smile!"

My big job today was sorting my weekly pills. A job I detest with all the fires of hell. It takes 30 minutes. If I don’t drop pills on the floor.

My helper comes tomorrow so I don’t have to do dishes which is excruciating, standing at the sink.

It’s over two weeks since I slept in a bed as the recliner is the only place I can do a series of catnaps through the night with some small semblance of comfort.

I can see why some go insane from this kind of existence.

And so very few that understand it.

I know I never did.

And I realize one of the greatest gifts in life we can offer each other is to listen.

 

Etc

I've been struggling a bit with health challenges - mainly, and sadly, much pain, some of it completely baffling me. I couldn't even lie down yesterday, I had to sleep in my recliner.

I talked to other elders today about the pain we know and the unexpected pains we get which seem unrelated to medication shifts.

The two of them produced evidence of similar episodes which vanish after a couple of days.

I've never seen it written about before. Aging body ambulation's suddenly seizing and flattening with surprising outbursts of unexpected aches and near immobility. Some so severe that walking is impossible, along with, like myself yesterday, not allowing even a lying down.

Living with the unfamiliar.

Today is better, the mysterious crippling lurch not as severe.

I am managing a pile of editing today as we have a deadline for June 30th for The Big Finito for publishing the latest anthology sometime in July. 

I am playing Bach on one of those five hours streams which fills me with gratitude. And a kind of reluctant joy.

Iceberg Season is here and here is one pic from yesterday.

And this is right by where I live, a village right in the City of St. John's by the name of Qidi Vidi - photo courtesy of Jonathan Cooper. Fog can be a glorious sight.

Update

 I had an unpleasant reaction to some new medication the doc prescribed. And I truly hate to say this but everything seems to be an uphill battle lately with, internally, myself screaming: not another effing hill to  climb.

Daughter was in and I just couldn't summon enough strength to go out to lunch with her so she brought some Indian curry in. A new Indian restaurant has opened on this side of the city and the food was delightful. Absolutely the best samosas I have eaten and the lamb curry was to die. A huge menu. Opening in a pandemic is quite gutsy.

A friend/neighbour had given me some pills she was using for her pain management and they also worked for me but doc refuses to prescribe and was enraged I had taken medication not prescribed. I hear him but I was desperate just to get some relief in walking across a room, just for a day. So he refused to prescribe them as I might get "addicted" or long range, they might lose their efficacy. I said the quality of my life was so badly effected that I would take anything at this point. And I was an old woman - what? did he think I was going to wind up under a bridge with a needle in my arm? No budge.

I was down though for lots of days and I am going to tackle him again. But I had to conserve my strength for CBC and the interview which went well, I thought.

If you wish to hear it, please email me at wisewebwoman at gmail dot com and I will send you the link. I wish to remain anonymous here as I write of everything from my personal journey to more political matters and I need to keep my oars in the water so to speak.

I keep counting the small things today to keep my spirits up. I'm reading a marvelous book called "The Guest Book". It's gripping. Thanks to whoever recommended it. And there's some great stuff on Britbox that holds my attention. One recently watched was "A Confession" with Martin Freeman, based on a true story.

Pardon Me

I'm not writing about much today. I've had two days of savage pain which neither the CBD oil nor the Tylenol extra strength alleviate.

I'm getting used to days like these. I know they pass. And who knows why they pass? Some wooey magic? The body going phooey, let's give her a break?

I felt miserable.

And I considered the hidden life of Facecloth (my personal petname for you know what). I posted jokes and comments and updated some of my web pages and thought: No one could ever tell from these posts that I was distracting myself from my rebelling body. And posted a picture of the sun washing the dark windows of houses as it slid below the horizon sitting by the lake with its dog park and missed my Ansa. I can make more room on the pity-pot if you wish.

And apologies for the swimming in the sea of me post.

But there you have it.

The US is what it is, a cesspool of fascism and racism and all the other isms of nearly 50% of its population. A terrifying thought. And their Mussolini at the top of the heap screaming and yelling like a toddler, condemning his own country's voting security with every blast and no one from his party marching out there and seizing him by the neck and throwing him into one of his own cages. Why are they complicit in his treason?

Be that as it may on this rambling Saturday, where the pain is not showing its face so much.

I hung this picture which I got on the Great Northern Peninsula. I absolutely love it.

And optimistically picked up my Book Club's selections from the library where I was greeted by name by the librarian.

I'm telling you, we need to cling to the small things like never before.

Leaving Normal

In times of fierce and unrelenting grief, I notice this:

Reading is too intense, requiring too much concentration. Toss.

Even an intelligent TV series like The Good Wife Season 3 requires more brain cells than I can fire up. I have to replay and replay and the threads evaporate as readily as they hove into view. I miss key information, I get frustrated. Toss.

A friend, through her father's lingering death played endless games of FreeCell on her laptop. This was a good thing.

People don't share what they do on a deathwatch. There I said it. Deathwatch. Horrible word.

And why not the distractions? You can only stare and cry and moan so much, right? Then there's knitting. I tried that. I get frustrated. That concentration thing. Toss.

And there's the telephone, the chatter seems meaningless but then what can people say? The odd few I reach out to are never home. And tripling my efforts to connect is more energy than I can summon. Hell, getting dressed is climbing Everest.

I find my family is immeasurably supportive and understanding. Bricks. We don't realize this until we're going through hell. They support me through my missing daughter, through health issues and other miseries. They say the right things like "take care of you, don't forget."

So I fire up FreeCell and get intense about that. And Mah-jongg.

And yesterday I show up to this Boxing Day bash and to my surprise I stayed and had those wonderfully distracting conversations with authors and artists and doctors and others who knew nothing of my deep pain. And that was a good thing until I got home and I felt guilty for forgetting even briefly, like I was on a short vacation.

And innocuous stupid news services on line that normally insult my intelligence I now find gripping.

And I wonder where elusive and lovely Normal is.