Archives for posts with tag: medical marijuana
« Older Entries

What About Pain, Though?

November 25, 2017 //
1

Fucking hell, this is some real shit, right here.

I woke early – 3:38 am – no alarm. Had to pee, not an uncommon mammalian or primate thing at all, it happens. I wasn’t awake enough, quite, to realize that this moment would cascade into other small unpleasant experiences, like dominoes toppling, each less comfortable than the previous moment leading to it. Having to pee was easy to resolve… then it was all about my sinuses draining… then I became aware of the headache… my pounding heart… the breathless feeling… Why the hell was I “holding my breath” like that in the first place??? Right. Pain. I’m betting it was actually the pain that woke me, because as it turned out, I really didn’t have to pee that badly, certainly not badly enough to wake me from a deep sleep. It is, perhaps, habitual to immediately head in that direction if I wake during the night, at all. lol

Fuck, I am in so much pain, already, today. It’s not yet actually even time to begin the day. :-\ The world is quiet, and there is no sound of traffic, or the existence of humanity beyond this keyboard, and this monitor, right here. It is just now 4:30 am, on a Saturday morning. I could be sleeping… if I were not awake. I hurt too much to feel sleepy. I may as well begin the day… for some values of “beginning”. I made coffee. 0_o

Realizing, after the first sip, that coffee does not, in any way, address pain, and pain being, in fact, the issue at hand, I drop an ice-cube in my coffee and let it melt on my way to the shower, and chug it before I step under the steamy hot water…

…A shower, some yoga, and yes, actually, another shower after that… and generous application of medical cannabis (both as a topical balm, where I can reach painful places, and vaporized)… I make coffee number two, and sit down to write, hopeful that I may find adequate relief without reaching for an Rx pain reliever. 5:52 am. Still far earlier than today needed to begin. lol Fuck – how is this much pain even a thing? Is this really fucking necessary? I know I have arthritis – what fucking help is all this pain?? What could it possibly be telling me that has any value, at all? Damn. Well… the coffee, the yoga and the shower eased the headache pain. That’s something. No headache. I pause to sip my coffee and appreciate that for a long moment. I do not have a headache, right now. Nice. I’ll take it.

Next? Distraction. Cognitive trickery – totally fair game, and a worthy practice. 🙂

Yesterday was lovely. I did not shop. I did not buy. I chilled at home, mostly just looking out onto the deck, sipping coffee, or tea, or reading a book. I’ve been somewhat disappointed since I moved in to see creatures so seldom. I mean, I’ve seen bunnies, chipmunks, squirrels, a rather large raccoon, but birds have been fairly rare, aside from seeing them fly by now and then. The one squirrel visitor who seemed to be regular was only interested in the bird seed I had hoped would be, you know, for the birds. lol I switched to putting out a small dish of whole peanuts, on an irregular basis, and an ear of dried corn in a hanging feeder that the squirrel could more safely get to. I haven’t seen the squirrel back, but the dish has often been quickly emptied, and the cob stripped far faster than I had expected, fairly often. Yesterday, spending hours just watching (and hours that are generally spent in the office, far away), I finally got to see how things go, here on the deck. Apparently, things don’t get going until around 11 am, in the late autumn.

A beautiful Steller’s Jay stopped by for a peanut… or… several. lol

I watched the jay coming and going for quite a while. Then, a female jay joined him. Then, a pair of robins stopped by, not interested in the peanuts, but feeling safe to check out the soil in all the pots for tasty things. A hummingbird snacked on each remaining blossom in the garden, which is to say, some nasturtiums in the hanging baskets, and some blooms left on Baby Love, a miniature rose that doesn’t appear to give a damn about the season, and blooms almost year round. A small woodpecker visited a tree just beyond the deck, and the hawk I often hear circling overhead took a seat in a tree top within view. I sat, delighted, for an hour or two (or more…?).

I sat long enough, aware, and patiently observing, to begin spotting dens, nests, burrows, and bowers.

It was time well spent. It was just at the moment I first considered getting up to go “do something” that my last visitor came around.

…my squirrel visitor is nibbling on my tarragon…

I sit quietly, sneaking an occasional picture, hoping not to startle the squirrel, who still seems very shy. Eventually, my wee visitor makes its way to the corn feeder, first checking the empty dish for peanuts (the jays got them all).

…I’m glad to know for sure the squirrel knows the feeder is there. 🙂

The sinking sun was already beginning to change the color of the forest beyond the deck. I smile to myself to see that I’ve used the word “forest”, even now that I can so clearly see it’s really only a strip of trees, a bit of grass, and then the backs of all the houses another street over. lol Those Big Leaf Maples really provide a dense wall of greenery in spring and summer, quite delightfully private.

There are things to love about this place and time. It is worth being here, now.

…And… It’s worked. A bit of distraction, lingering on the recollection of something quite pleasant, looking through the pictures, sharing it with you, in words, here… I don’t hurt as much. I’ve had a chance to benefit from the yoga, the shower, and taking medication. My consciousness isn’t saturated in information to do with pain, or sensations of it. I can move on with the day, and maybe fairly comfortably. It’s not magic. There are verbs involved. My results vary. But… today it is enough, and I can begin again. 🙂

 

 

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, gardening, health, Healthy Living, medical marijuana, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Sleepless Nights, The Art of Being, winter, Words

Waking Up Slowly

July 6, 2016 //
0

Sometimes I have the sense that the entirety of my life is a process of waking up slowly, but in the case of this morning, the titular remark is an observation relevant only to the morning I face now. This one. I woke really early and went back to sleep. I woke a bit later, on time for taking my morning medication – which I did – then I went back to sleep. I woke about 90 minutes later, again, found another comfortable position. Went back to sleep. This repeated until some minutes ago… when I woke, and after looking at the clock, pulled myself upright to begin the day, rather arbitrarily. I think I could have kept sleeping.

I woke slowly. I woke puzzled by the utter quiet. I still don’t hear any traffic, really, just bird song. The on site contractors working on this and that haven’t yet arrived, and there’s no sound of neighborhood children heading to school… It’s quite peculiar. I make a point to listen – I do hear birdsong. I hear my fingers on the keyboard. The morning is such a quiet one, even with the windows thrown open to the morning breezes, that I easily hear the goose neck kettle finish it’s part in the making off coffee – no whistle, no alarm, just a quiet ‘click’ from the kitchen.

My coffee is good. I sip it contentedly and let the morning slowly come to life. I think about yesterday, and consider what I learned from it, and all the many mysteries that remain. It wasn’t actually a ‘bad day’ or even a ‘bad experience’ being at the VA yesterday, generally speaking. I got my imaging done, and took some interesting pictures while I was waiting. I don’t know more about my health than I did before. I’m still waiting. I’m not at all sure what to make of that. There’s probably something to learn from it. 🙂

Something... something... perspective. (Give me a break, I haven't had my coffee, yet!) :-)

Something… something… perspective. (Give me a break, I haven’t had my coffee, yet!) 🙂

I arrived home incredibly cross on this whole other aggravating level. I canceled plans with my traveling partner; I wasn’t fit to be around, honestly, and I’d have gotten as far from me as I could, if that were an option. My irritability didn’t last, once I undertook to care for my needs. There is no place at the VA convenient for using cannabis, the grim hilarity of which is not lost on me (it’s the only drug I know that actually works effectively on many PTSD symptoms), and I arrived home seriously under-medicated for my stress level. My blood sugar wasn’t an issue, and I was pleased that I’d managed that piece with such care. My noise sensitivity was through the roof – doesn’t matter if that was caused by being under-medicated or due to the stress, resolving either would ease it. I felt angry-but-not-at-anything-specific, and more than anything I just needed quiet in an environment with a lot less stimuli – particularly social stimuli. Public transportation is crowded, noisy, and emotionally loaded during rush hour. Once I was home, it was not-quite-easy to take care of my needs, dial down my stress, ease my frazzled nerves, and find my way to feeling okay, again. It was a nice change to be able to re-calibrate my mood successfully.

Work in progress - like me. :-)

Work in progress – like me. 🙂

Now, here’s today. What’s to be done with that? My knee aches from the long Monday hike, and I’m walking with my hiking staff for support for a few days. The apartment could use some tidying, and there’s laundry to be done. I’m in the middle of an art project I’m emotionally  invested in. I’ve taken up bass guitar, and – well – practice is a necessary thing. I have one appointment, later. The knee is an inconvenience, were it not for that the day plans itself easily walking to the appointment, from the appointment to the store, and home… maybe I can manage that in spite of the knee, taking things slowly and with great care? There’s time. It sounds like a nice day, actually…but it won’t feel so nice if I over-commit, and find myself a mile or more down the trail, unable to continue due to pain. Yoga first and reassess? That seems a wise choice. I finish my coffee feeling purposeful, still wrapped in contentment.

I’m hopeful the day will include a visit with my traveling partner, but I’m not so invested in it that I would be blown off course if the day takes a different turn. That’s a lovely level of flexibility and resilience to have – I’ve worked at it for a while now. Success feels very comfortable. Natural. Learning to let go of attachment, and becoming more emotionally self-sufficient, has been entirely worth making the effort to sort myself out, find out how worthy I am of my own company, and to become a woman I am entirely content to hang out with day-to-day, on my own. 🙂  Still… I miss my partner when we’re apart, and I’m eager to enjoy his company, if not today, then another day – any other day. 🙂

It's a good day for practicing effective practices.

It’s a good day for practicing effective practices.

Today is a good day for sunshine, and getting things done. Today is a good day to smile at strangers. Today is a good day to be the change I wish to see in the world. Right now? Right now is a good time for a second cup of coffee. 😉

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, medical marijuana, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, The Art of Being

Some Mornings Less So

May 8, 2016 //
0

Most mornings proceed pretty gently for me these days, and even on the worst of them I get by pretty well, and treat myself decently, and with considerable compassion. This morning was less than usually gentle, and although I’ve done what I can, I am less than ideally kind to myself – I am frustrated by my limitations and feeling irked. It’s not the best addition to my morning coffee, which somehow tastes bitter in spite of using the same coffee I find so richly satisfying most other mornings – and in spite of my general lack of ability to detect bitter flavors in the first place. It is one more defining detail of the start of my day.

I woke from a sound sleep, head as stuffy as the room also felt, throat dry, head pounding, and the clock factually admonishing me that it was already 5:30 am, well into the ‘I may as well get up’ time of morning [for me]. I definitely did not want to get up, and I felt groggy and out of sorts. I got up to pee, and opened the patio door to the morning breeze, hoping to cool the apartment down without fully waking up, and noticing my pain well beyond the usual as I did so. (That makes it sound far more efficient than my hapless dizzy clumsy careening around the room actually was.) I took my morning medication, drank a glass of water, and returned to bed, hoping to sleep in spite of the pain. That doesn’t always work out for me, particularly after sunrise, but on this gray overcast moody looking morning, and after considerable tossing and turning trying to find some combination of pillows and posture that would allow it, I slept.

I woke later to a cool room filled with fresh morning air, headache gone, and easily able to breathe. I feel rested. I still hurt. I am in more pain than usual, possibly just the ordinary change in my arthritis pain that comes with a change in the weather. Yesterday, sunny, warm, and clear… today, gray, overcast, cool, and threatening rain – it’s very much the sort of change that comes with more than usual pain, and I feel less cross with myself recognizing that. (At 5:30 am it was less obvious that it would be a cloudy day.) My coffee is still pretty dreadful… and I give some moments of thought to whether it makes more sense to pour it out and make another cup, or just drink it and have a better second cup later? I get up to go pour it out and start over… then remember I am currently getting by on limited income. Shit. I sit down, taking a more practical, frugal approach, and sip my coffee as it is… glaring down into the dark brew now and then, wondering what the hell went wrong with my process this morning to get this result?

Still… pain and a bad cup of coffee isn’t the whole of my day, or of my experience – it’s not even the whole of my morning. I’m barely awake yet, and the day stretches ahead well beyond my ‘now’, unformed, unlived, and largely unimagined. There will be verbs involved, and choices. 🙂 I sip my coffee and wonder whether or not ‘taking care of me’ today is more about yielding to the pain I am in and compromising my loose plans for greater comfort… or refusing to let my pain call the shots, and undertaking the things I am inclined to do, more slowly perhaps and less comfortably, and just understand that the pain is what it is, and it’s part of my experience more often than I’d like… It’s a hard call this morning. If it actually hurt less to just go back to bed and stay there… I probably would. It doesn’t, so that’s not even an option. lol

That’s a funny thing about the vast menu of choices life presents me with, that I don’t consider as frankly as I might, as often as would be helpful… there are some things I want very much to be choices of mine, that are not in fact on my own actual [still vast] menu of choices to consider – when I am honest with myself. I can’t really choose not to be in pain with my arthritis in any realistic way. I can’t choose to be younger. I can’t choose to change the past. I can’t choose to begin somewhere over there, when I am standing right here. I can’t choose for any of the many details of reality to be other than they are – although I can choose to ignore them, or pretend them differently, the consequences of my actions remain tied to the real reality, and the true truth. Reality does not care what lies we tell ourselves. Our truths have very little to do with what we say in words.

So… this morning… pain. I still want to go to the farmers’ market this morning. When I go, some later, I will still have to be mindful that my resources have changed a lot, and being frugal has value – this is a poor time to be careless or wasteful with resources. I will need to slow down a bit, and manage my pain – or my pain will take the driver’s seat and manage my mood. Choices. Always choices. It’s worthwhile to take a few minutes over my coffee to consider what my choices really are – and where they lead me.

I decide on a hearty breakfast at home, accepting as a given that shopping when I am hungry may drive unintended spending. Before breakfast, a walk and yoga. A second cup of coffee. A hot shower. I notice in this one moment, right here, now, I am not actually in pain… I don’t question that, and I do pause everything else (writing, coffee, gazing at the bird feeder beyond the window…) and take some time to be aware that I am not hurting, to savor it, to linger over the sensations of feeling good; doing so is a practice that shifts my implicit memory away from ‘being in pain all the time’ to being aware that I am not always in pain, and improving my day-to-day perspective and sense of my experience. Moment by moment I build my day… the difficult start? Just one moment of many to come, and I let it go. 🙂

Neither a single ocean wave nor one small bird defines a day at the beach.

Neither a single ocean wave nor one small bird defines a day at the beach.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Free Will, Healthy Living, Metaphors, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, The Art of Being, Words

The Occasional Other Moment

March 1, 2016 //
0

I generally enjoy my experience of life so much these days. Contentment is a prominent feature of my emotional landscape, sustainable, real, authentic, and fairly easily supported with a number of basic good self-care practices (emotional and physical). It’s not fancy, but it’s a long way from misery, chronic frustration, and anger – and more than that; it is enough. More often than not, these days, my experience is both ‘about’ sufficiency and enjoyed on the basis of sufficiency, as well as ‘wholeness’ – which isn’t quite ‘wellness’ – and basic worthiness.

The journey isn’t over, and I hope it continues for a long while to come. I’m still very human. There are still verbs involved. I still experience emotional weather – although the climate has improved greatly. 🙂 My results vary.

Be love.

Be love.

Last night I had a bad bit, and even now I am not certain why. I’d gotten home from an afternoon appointment with a new physician. It had gone well, and I didn’t have to travel very far at all, so I arrived home quite near to the usual time of evening. I was relaxing after a bite of dinner when a state of extreme irritation, almost anger, swept over me quite unexpectedly, and without any obvious cause at all. Unpleasant, sure, and potentially very problematic if I were living in a shared household; that’s the kind of stray emotional bullshit that quickly escalates among human primates, becoming a nasty evening of arguing, or unpleasant confrontational tension, with all the associated blame-laying and accusatory dialogue imaginable. Go ahead, imagine it if you want to; haven’t most of us been there at least once or twice? I did imagine it, in the moment, and gave myself a chance to feel the relief of living alone, and literally having no one to start shit with.

A helpful reminder; I apply it equally to how I speak to myself these days.

A helpful reminder; I apply it equally to how I speak to myself these days.

I gently alerted my traveling partner I was having some challenges with emotional balance and logged off for the night to manage my needs, medicate, meditate, and call it a night. Few things ease unexpected emotional volatility like meditation. Medical cannabis is a another exceptional tool in my toolkit, particularly if there is any chance that my issues are symptomatic of my PTSD, or when fatigue causes my injury to weigh in more heavily on the outcome. Getting adequate rest [for this particular human being that I am myself] is critical – and I’m not always aware of the impact of small changes in my sleep. (Even something small like having a stuffy head interrupting my sleep periodically over days can eventually become a bigger deal.) It’s hard to overstate how valuable it has been to learn to more skillfully take care of this fragile vessel.

I sat quietly for a long while, letting emotions ebb and flow without interference, interpretation, root cause analysis, or criticism. No tears – this one was mostly emotions of anger, quite specifically, and just not associated with anything particular. I could so easily have made it ‘something’… Instead, I let stillness fill my senses. I took deep calming breaths and let the emotions come and go, feeling them fearlessly and letting them pass. And again. Over about an hour, the landscape of my thoughts began to shift toward pleasant observations, contentment, calm, and I found myself wrapped in a gentler experience as the evening ended. I slept well and deeply.

Would it make you nuts to feel angry and not know ‘why’? Would you feel an urgent need to explain or justify it? To make sense out of it? To identify the cause and bring the wrong-doer to justice? Does there have to be a wrong-doer in the first place? Our emotions have a chemical component – and some of our most basic physical sensations are shared with emotional experiences, too. How often have I taken some physical experience and ascribed causes to it, nudged it into an emotional context, and turned it into drama – instead of taking some time for myself to just breathe through it, recognize that feelings are… feelings (and may not be anything more than the sensations of experience), without further requirement to take action on them, at all?

Sometimes finding a happy place is surprisingly close to home.

Sometimes finding a happy place is surprisingly close to home.

This morning begins gently, and I have a busy work day ahead that doesn’t occupy my thoughts needlessly early. I have evening plans with my traveling partner. In all respects a promising day unfolding ahead of me. It’s enough.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, medical marijuana, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, weight loss secrets, Words

Pits and Pitfalls

October 10, 2015 //
3

This morning is a very different morning than I had expected. I find myself sorely regretting allowing myself expectations, at all. I am struggling with this moment right here, when all evidence indicates that this moment right here isn’t a bad one taken in the context of nothing more than this moment.

I made a hash of the lovely morning I expected to be having with my partner. It’s that simple; a handful of insensitive words, poorly timed, and the whole thing goes sideways. Complicated fancy fucking monkeys. I feel frustrated with myself. Disappointed with the situation, and still struggling just to get a grip on the sudden spilling over of needlessly intense emotions into every damned thing. My demons dance happily in my tears; today they won. Now my head aches, and I can’t seem to stop these loathsome tears from falling. I am angry with myself for lacking ‘control’ – as if forcing myself to feel specific emotions, or display them quite correctly based on some set of rules, is the point of this whole mess. (It isn’t.) I am disappointed to have hurt my partner’s feelings – and being a fucking primate, I am admittedly even more disappointed to have blown my chances at having sex today. (We’re really good at it together, and I like it just about more than anything else, and it has become a rare thing for a number of reasons, not the least of which are simply geographical distance and calendar conflicts.) I am filled with regret and sorrow – which is a completely shitty emotional experience.

At least for the moment, I have lost touch with my sense of purpose or of progress. I feel stalled. I feel overwhelmed.

Getting it wrong first thing can be hard to take, but there is still a whole day ahead to work with. Choose.

Getting it wrong first thing can be hard to take, but there is still a whole day ahead to work with. Choose.

…We didn’t even finish our coffees together; the realization launches a flood of new tears, and they cascade down my cheeks, hot, plentiful, and resented. I cry more when I notice that I forgot to ask him to help me put on my locket; my fingers haven’t successfully worked the clasp for two days now, and I ache with a strange subtle hurt every time I notice I am not wearing it.

He didn’t leave me alone like this willingly. I sent him away. I write those words through even more tears. What the fuck is wrong with me? I don’t feel any sense of the progress made over time. I seem unable to connect with how good I have felt lately, or how well-loved. I feel cut off from intimacy – and it’s self-inflicted, a byproduct of the combination of my chaos and damage, and an injury so old I don’t understand why am still dealing with it now.  I am child-like with my misery, weeping unreservedly until I’m all cried out.

Sometimes it's hard to focus on the distant horizon when the shadows and silhouettes of the chaos and damage seem so near.

Sometimes it’s hard to focus on the distant horizon when the shadows and silhouettes of the chaos and damage seem so near.

The phone rings. He reaches out to tell me it wasn’t all me, and it’s a message I need to hear. I don’t understand it as a given that when we interact we’re both in it, both involved, both using verbs – and words. We both forget about my injury – and the unfortunate resulting lack of impulse control, and the peculiar communication challenges that are much more significant when I am first waking up. He’s gentle with me over the phone, reassuring, reminding me that love is, and that he loves me; this is a shared journey, as much as any journey can be. I still have this headache. It will pass. I will be okay – I am, in fact, actually okay in this moment right here. I make a point of expressing appreciation that I am able to [emotionally] safely and comfortably ask him to go when I need to take care of me – that’s not something everyone has in their relationships. I still feel like a dick for being insensitive and hurting his feelings; it is irrelevant to feeling hurt whether that hurt was delivered willfully or cluelessly. Hurting hurts.

So. Here I am, alone, and mostly feeling pretty crappy with an entire autumn weekend stretching before me, nothing on my calendar, no plans, nothing that much gets my attention to do with my time; this is not a weekend to be running away from me with entertaining distractions. I’ve logged off of Facebook. Logged off of my social media accounts. No announcement or vaguebooking statement required; I am just taking some time for quiet and stillness. There are very few things that help with this particular shit storm of emotional disregulation; meditation is the most powerful tool in my arsenal, alongside cannabis. My Love arrived before I had time for either, and before my prescription Rx for my pain management, or my thyroid condition had time to be effective. The timing of his visit was itself enough to increase the risk that something would go wrong. We both know a lot about my limitations in that first 90 minutes or so after I wake; we made choices based on how much we miss each other, how much we want each other, and the convenience of opportunity. 😦

I am still working on me.

I am still working on me.

I’m not writing all this down to evoke pity or sympathy – if you find yourself feeling either, I thank you for your good nature, and your concern. I’m okay – well, I feel pretty ick right now, but I will be okay. I am taking the time to share this for two reasons: the most important and first reason is that ‘using my words’ is a perspective-providing tool that tends to most efficiently help me dial down the ferocity of my emotions. I make an effort to be quite clear, and reasonable, and careful to be truthful, accurate, and fair to other people when I write a blog post. When I write in my private journal, I am more prone to spiraling negative self-talk, or skewed perspective that can be punishing, or accusatory – neither is helpful, and both have the potential to build damaging narrative that fuels drama. The second reason to take the time to write about the hard stuff, the bullshit, the hurting, and the chaos is also about perspective; it’s not easy to cope with and rehabilitate a brain injury, and it’s not easy working through the hurting of PTSD.  There are verbs involved. My results vary. Change and growth over time are incremental…and sometimes the increments are fucking small. It can be very discouraging, and I think there is value in being real about the work involved. It won’t always be easy – it may not ever be easy – but there is value in trudging through, practicing the practices, and beginning again when I falter. (You, too.)

I’m fortunate to have such a strong partnership with someone who really does love me supporting me emotionally through all this, and realistically I can’t help but be aware that there is some risk this love won’t survive my struggles; at some point it may really just be too much to ask. That’s part of what hurts so much; there’s no knowing with certainty when that point has been reached, until I get there. Scary.

Begin again.

Begin again.

Today is a good day to take care of this fragile vessel, and to take another step on this journey; the steps add up. Today is a good day to begin again.

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories Anxiety, art and the artist, autumn, Brain Injury, grief, Love, medical marijuana, Mindfulness, more than a little bit of bitching, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, Words
« Older Entries