Most weeks, I spend the latter two days of spurning my energy to rise from my bed with the knowledge that, if I really wanted to, I could get into my pajamas on Friday morning and literally stay in them until Sunday night when the whole routine opens itself a fresh pack. Most weekends, I begin the days off with that same intent, but one thing leads to another, and despite this incredible pain I'm in, I force myself to get out and do something, if for no other reason than to not have to stay home and hurt. This weekend, though, I managed to totally absolve myself of any and all distractions by running errands yesterday and knocking out the last of anything that could get me out of the house earlier today. In fact, I even have Lola parked at the very top of the driveway as an added reminder that I need to keep my butt right where it is. I need to rest and relax and take care of me for a change.
Pain is a funny thing (I know I've written this same phrase countless times since I began keeping my blog, and I'm sure this will not be the last I write it), and chronic pain is something that I would really like to do more research on. For instance, I'm curious to know how many individuals suffering from chronic pain are prone to periods of depression and/or suicidal thoughts. I'm not by any stretch of the imagination either depressed or suicidal, but keeping a happy face on twenty-four-hours-a-day can be something of a daunting task when there's this lingering difficulty that constantly ebbs and flows and rises and subsides, but never really goes away.
I'm on the home stretch with the corrective surgery just over a week from now, but I'm terrified of what this final week will be like. I've not taken any N-SAIDS (my reliable and trustworthy personal Jesus, Ibuprofen, which works to take the edge off in massive quantities when nothing else, not even the heavy prescriptive stuff, will touch it) in two days, and I'm not allowed to have any within one week of the surgery. Usually, I can take 800 to 1,000 milligrams of the stuff and it will curb the sharp and debilitating knife that cuts its way into my lower back. The pain doesn't go away, and I suppose that the sense of relief is at least fifty percent psychological as I simply go into some sort of a trance, a zone, and I try to focus on something else, anything else, anything but this awful and excruciating and totally overwhelming issue that has just gotten progressively worse and worse since first making itself known in the fall of 2008 before reaching a point of being impossible to ignore the following spring semester.
I wonder whether or not the professionals have looked into the number of work days lost and the amount of money spent to care for individuals with conditions such as mine. Of course, being a patient at The Spine Institute, I see those men and women whose conditions are far worse than mine, some of them have gotten to the point, either through injury or some other stimulus, that they cannot take a step or move themselves at the waist without visibly grimacing and their eyes filling with water. I have to say that the doctors have an obviously lucrative practice and that their facility is merely one of many, someone must have done some number crunching at some point. I'm just eager to take this next step and I am crossing my fingers and meditating and repeating silent (possible worthless, but hopefully acknowledged) prayers for this surgery to be it, for me to wake up and feel relief. I want to be able to run a mile and work out my arms, legs, abdominals, and chest. I want to be able to resume all the other great (and EXTREMELY missed) activities that I have had to put on hold due to the progressiveness of my condition. I'm only 32-years-old. I'm not supposed to be dealing with such life-consuming disorders like spinal stenosis and degenerative disc disease and multiple herniated discs and all sorts of referred (and anger-inducing) effects throughout my otherwise healthy body.
This topic is tired now. It was tired a year ago, but it's wasting away to redundant and boring today. Moving on...
I updated some information at GoodReads.com, but I don't think that the site is totally user friendly, and I wish that there were a way to literally just input a list of titles and information without being prompted to mark the books as "read" or "to be read" or "on the shelf." I began the Dean Koontz book, The Funhouse last weekend, but I got less than one hundred pages into it, and I'm finding that I'm not totally sure that I'm interested in finishing it. In my life, there have been very few books that I've put down permanently as un-finish-able, and I always feel some sense of guilt for never giving something a fair chance. I've liked the other Dean Koontz titles I've read in the past: Strangers, The Voice in the Night, Phantoms (all of which I'd very much enjoy reading again now that I'm an adult and would likely have a totally new perspective on). Instead of totally disregarding this title and considering it unworthy of my time, I'm thinking I'll just put it down until I'm in the mood.
Instead, I've moved on to Agatha Christie's Evil Under the Sun. Besides this and Tess of the D'urbervilles, I'll be taking several other Christie titles (and a stack from the favorite writer of my teen aged years: Christopher Pike) along for beach reading. I might take a sample from every other genre I have on my to-read list, but I suspect that once I get going on the mystery/thrillers, I'll want to ride them out for a while. Most of the selections I made yesterday in my weekly trip to one of the local Thrifty Peanut locations were far more literary than the pulp I've been amassing a rather large collection of for my summer reading. The authors included were many of those that I've been meaning to read and/or have been wanting to read more of: Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, Revolutionary Road from Richard Yates, Alice Walker, Saul Bellow, Tim O'Brien, Joyce Carol Oates, Charles Dickens, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a few others.
Tyler's not able to get out and about for visitation privileges tonight, so I'm gonna hang out with my mom, read, maybe watch some TV. I've got a ton of stuff in my queue and a ton saved up on my DVR that desperately needs watching. Right now, I've got the original Tod Browning version of Dracula queued up and playing (this is the version with the music from Swan Lake, the version that was remastered and airs on TCM and AMC every October for the month of Halloween).
Maybe I am kinda bummed. I'm trying not to be that way, but moving from a funk into a spot of positive spirit is sometimes easier said than done. When I was trying to urge somebody for whom I care a great deal to do the same, I texted some rather long, rather profound stuff. I'm including it below because I believe that it has meaning and ramifications for everyone, most especially for me, in this time of tempestuous and arduous change. The only omissions to the original text are those that I'm making to protect the identity of its recipient. I suppose this applies to anyone who is in the process of attempting to redeem himself for himself, in the only eyes that matter: his own.
"...Life is never easy. In fact, this past week has been pretty close to difficult. When things go sour, it seems like it's just one shit storm after another, one big ball of suck. But in less than a week, I'll have some time off to re-evaluate some things, and I know that two weeks from now, none of this crap will even be a blip on the radar. I'll hit rough spots in the future, but I'll never have to re-live this week again because I've learned from it. You're in a period of transition, too. You can make a choice here and now. Either allow it to destroy you or opt for it to be a jumping off point for a big, bright tomorrow that you never thought to consider. Life is always interesting, but it's never all roses. Not completely. When you want something, you have to fight to make it yours sometimes because the only people who just automatically have good fortune without earning it are fictional characters. It's time for you to stop living in fear, to stand up, and to be a man. It won't be easy, and most everybody in your life will resist it and make it harder. But most of the happiness you receive in your life is the kind you seek out and work toward. If I were calling the shots for you, I'd have you in (portion omitted for privacy, but the information was a short list of two specific goals; therefore, they could be anything for anyone) in six months or less. I don't know how, but I'd make a plan and find the way to do it. I don't really know what all you believe, but I do believe in destiny and purpose. (Portion omitted for privacy, but it related to the recipient's past and some recent accomplishments), graduated college, and now have the numbers and drive to take you anywhere you want to go suggests that there's some reason you're still here. Don't let the bad times define (recipient's name removed for privacy; anyone can insert his or her name so that this information has personal and specific meaning for one's self). Live to make them funny anecdotes you can fondly recall some time in your later years."
T-minus 4 days and the beach is within reach.
T-minus 8 days and I get cut out of the rut.
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