I was never a pills person, nor one to ask for help or let anyone know of my discomfort. I mean, I'd tweet about it sometimes and whine about it a lot, but I never actually ask for help. I was used to gritting my teeth and waiting for the pain to pass over. This happens over migraines, cramps, and muscle aches. It also happened when I came out of surgery and during chemo.
After surgery I never really asked the nurses for painkillers, I just dealt with what I had. I would lay in my own sweat in bed because it would hurt to move. Then one night when I was wide awake from my pain, the ahma next to me asked the nurse for painkillers and she got them. Just like that. After that I asked for pills whenever I had to.
After chemo, I threw up a max of 12 times in a single night. This went on for six weeks before I saw my doctor. When I told him, he asked if I had called the cancer centre. I said no. He looked at me bewildered, and exclaimed, you know you didn't have to go through all that right? We could have gotten you medicine! That thought never occurred to me. Not once. I didn't know, I didn't know I could ask for help, I didn't know I didn't have to go through all that pain. I thought it was normal.
Sometimes when pain finds us, we feel we have to absorb it all. Don't get me wrong, I understand the importance of pain. I might not have penned down my thoughts on that, but I've written about why we should never forget pain. Maybe I'll write about pain another time. But this post is about not dwelling on pain when we have an out. Why are we so used to suffering alone and not asking for help?
Call it stubbornness, or independence, or the fear of imposing on others. Some of us are so comfortable being by ourselves that we never think to ask others for help. But we have to. We need others to survive. We need to ask for help sometimes, to share what's ailing us. Whether it's physical or emotional or mental. We're not obliged to stay in that same state of suffering just because it's found us. We need to learn to be kind to ourselves, get help, get out of it.
I just got back from the clinic, today was session five. I absolutely love morphine because it takes away all the pain really quickly and works better than all the pills I've had. But because of that, I also fear taking it. I try not to ask for morphine and I resist taking it (I've got three bottles of it in my luggage) because I'm afraid of being dependent. At the clinic I started having abdominal pains again. This is what jolts me awake in the middle of the night and interrupts my rest. I've been feeling them for a while now and they suck.
I was considering asking for morphine when I started having a little debate in my head. Would you rather keep your body free from chemicals and be all "natural" and go through pain, or drug up and be pain free? How do people become addicted to morphine? How bad can it be if it takes away your pain? Can't you be on morphine forever and be okay? I decided to ask for it anyway because it was causing me so much discomfort. So the doctor injected it straight into my tubes and immediately I get these sharp pains in my hand where the IV is hooked up. It felt like my bone was on fire. I heard my voice quiver when I asked if he could remove the needle. He told me it was normal, that the pain in my abdomen would go away if I just tolerated this little pain.
Then I felt like House. Is this how he felt when he hurt himself just to forget the pain in his leg? Diversion of pain? After a while my hand stopped hurting and right now, I just took a shot of cannabis oil (my new treatment whooop) and I'm feeling super relaxed.
I spend about three hours at the clinic each time and they put me on IV. I also take cannabis oil and some other medication. I've been getting through the day with pain killers and I do feel a lot better. I just pray I don't become dependent. I want to be free of drugs and not be in pain, can? Can.