Unpleasant Week

It’s been a pretty unpleasant week really. Between pain and exhuastion and frustration, and wicked weird dreams thanks to the pain pills- I’m just about ready to flip out.

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This is Pride weekend in Dallas. And I really thought this would be the year I’d finally get to go. Last year, I went but never was able to find a parking place… and because it was pre-diagnosis, but when I was still so affected by my body’s exhaustion and issues, I finally gave up and just went the hell back home.

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And I thought surely this year… I’d be a week past treatment, I could go early, get a parking spot- I have friends in the area I could crash at their place to start with and meet up with friends later.

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But I have been in so much pain this week. More than my body is tired. I finally told my friends I wasn’t going to make it. I just can’t. Honestly, at this point, between pain and exhaustion… I’d need a wheelchair. Genuinely. And there’s a lot of things that stop me from borrowing one and just going. I just… I’m not ready to be that girl. I’m not ready to be stared at, and judged, and have people assume I’m in it because I’m fat, or lazy. Because that’s what people would see. Not, 31 with Cancer, in pain, desperate to be somewhere I really want to be. They’d see young and fat and probably just too lazy to walk around. I don’t have the energy to deal with that.

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And let’s face it. It’s better for my immune system NOT to be out in the middle of crowded Dallas surrounded by thousands of people. My pain really just proves that.

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But it sucks. Because all Summer… I kept thinking this would be the year. No work to conflict with, it’s a free event, we have a place to connect in order to meet up and go walk around. But once again… not meant to be..

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The pain this week has really set me back, not just physically but emotionally. I’ll admit it. I’ve been really depressed for the first time in quite a while. There is something about life-stopping pain that just… sort of takes over the brain. And I know it’s temporary. I get that. I’m grateful for that. I have a whole new level of respect for the people in my life that deal with chronic pain on a daily, permanent, and life-altering level.

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But I am not handling this very well. To someone who worked so so hard to not feed the bad-self-esteem monster, it has done surprising and disappointing things to my psyche. I don’t like the person I am when I’m in constant pain. I don’t like the person I am on the painkillers that are necessary to make just being … alive - bearable.

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Like I said, it’s been an unpleasant week o say the least. And so, like so many days this week, I wake up. I take another pain pill. And I crawl back into the dark, warm, quiet comfort of my bed. And think that maybe tomorrow… maybe tomorrow I can move without needing a narcotic to do it. Maybe tomorrow the black cloud I’d spent so much time and energy banishing will be gone again.

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But for right now… it’s another narcotic and more sleep. Because the dreams may be weird, but at least in them- I don’t notice the pain.