Pain Management

My wrists crack and my knuckles pop as I type this. I reach again for the compression wrist guards, wincing as my elbows voice their complaints and my hands rebel against the tight grip needed to pull the guards on. It’s better, but not perfect. I can still feel my jaw clench tight against the pain and I lean back in the chair, letting the lumbar support catch me as I unclench and massage my jaw a little, careful to avoid the tender lymph nodes as I do. I can only hold my arms up for a few seconds, though, so I continue to work my jaw around on its hinge while gravity pulls my hands back to the desk and the keyboard. 

I can’t think of what to say. 

The constellation lines have faded from my mug, which means my coffee’s cold, but it’s going to stay that way. Stairs are an... undertaking, usually, accompanied by a symphony of joint noises, hisses, and groans, so I avoid switching floors until I absolutely have to. A day like today, I might be able to limit it to one trip down and one trip up, as long as I can escape fatigue. I’ll kick myself if I do end up napping, but exhaustion is relentless. I know I’ll lose a battle here and there. 

That’s the funny thing about being attacked by an unknown illness. You sleep because the pain (or the meds) demands it, but the midday surprise naps topple your carefully drawn pain management plan, forcing you to push through activities in a way that causes you more pain. Brain fog leaves you staring at a computer screen unable to work, forcing you to rearrange your day around moments of clarity that arrive unexpectedly for an unknown length of time. I would laugh at the irony if the situation didn’t make me want to scream. I roll around in bed at night, trying to find a position that satisfies the needs of my hips, knees, back, and neck, remembering to unclench my jaw every time I settle into a temporary solution, frustrated once again at the state my body is in and promising myself I’ll do better tomorrow. I won’t, of course, but I make the promise anyway, just in case. 

I want to be profound. Aren’t chronic pain sufferers profound? Doesn’t the daily presence of the thing we’re all trying to avoid every moment of our lives cause them to see the world differently? Or am I too new at this to know what it means to have chronic pain? Do I need to suffer more before the wisdom comes? 

A month and a half ago, I went in for a routine gynecological exam. The severe abdominal pain I’d been having off and on since at least the previous August, when I went to urgent care thinking my appendix was on the verge of bursting, had picked up again and I’d noticed a hard but tender spot in the gynecological region, so I figured I’d get someone to look at it, thinking it might be an ingrown hair that had gotten infected somehow. I have polycystic ovary syndrome, which means that all the periods I’ve ever had have brought pain like this along for the ride, so I’d been convinced that this was an ovary problem, no matter what the ultrasounds said. 

Unfortunately for me, the doctor palpated the tender spot before doing the rest of the exam and my insides lit up with pain. I gritted my teeth through the rest of the pap smear and limped to my car when we were done. It’s nobody’s fault-- you shouldn’t expect a pain response like that as a part of a routine exam-- but in the days after, my muscles started to clench, maybe protecting this tender spot, and it became hard to stand and walk and lift anything heavier than our water pitcher. Not great for switching out soda bibs at a bar, much less kegs. I left my shift early a week after the exam and by the following Saturday, I was back in urgent care, looking for a doctor’s note to excuse me from shifts I knew I wouldn’t be able to work. 

A trip to the ER, a CT scan, two ultrasounds, and a prodigious amount of blood work later, we’ve discovered that I’ve had active Epstein-Barr Virus in the past two-three months, suspiciously close to when I had COVID in January. EBV is what causes Mono, and if these were on-going Mono symptoms, that would explain the exhaustion, the joint aches, and the swollen, tender lymph nodes, which is what my gynecologist palpated during the exam. But tests also indicate that I might have an autoimmune disease and given my family history, we’re going through the long process of ruling out the most frightening options and trying out different treatments to deal with the pain. I’m lucky. I’ve got good veins. I’ve also got a doctor who listens to me. 

And so, in the meantime, I look longingly at the motorized carts in the grocery store as I choose to shuffle around, hips stretching the bounds of their sockets as I lean on the cart I now need, even if I’m just picking up a few items. I anticipate the jolts of pain that come with putting weight back on heels that feel bruised after even fifteen minutes of sitting down. I’m off the schedule at the bar until things change. I pay attention to the pops of all my aching joints, always in search of the positions that minimize pain. There are not enough of them. 

I don’t know how to end this piece. Hire me, I guess, if you or someone you know needs a website built or updated, or some proofreading done. It’ll help balance the books until I’m (literally) back on my feet. Give me your tips for managing inflammation, if you have any. But mostly, I think, I wanted to give myself a ground to build on as I try and try again to write more routinely. My body sets the length of the run and the pace, but I want to see what I can do within those limitations. 

After all, plenty of life grows in pots.