I write a lot about chronic pain and back pain. For me it is a fact of life. I can't change it and unless medical science progresses much quicker than expected I will have it for the rest of my life. About 2 months ago I got some really horrible news. My latest CT scan showed my back had not stabilized but instead had accelerated its' degeneration. This sent me into a funk. Hell let's just call it what it was. I was depressed. For me it was a bad depression. I couldn't kick it. I couldn't get past it. I couldn't joke my way around it.
Depression seems to go hand in hand with chronic pain. Everyone deals with it in different ways. Normally I am a pretty happy guy. Every once in a while I get down. The pain wins for a time, a short time usually and then I bounce back. I end up going to my one science fiction fantasy of getting a monkey spine complete with tail. It cures my pain and I go on to have some hilarious adventures with my new tail. All in my head. It works as a pretty quick cure for the blues at least for me.
This time was different. My monkey tail dreams weren't working. Maybe it was a combination of things. My birthday was just a couple of months away when I got the news. I was fast approaching 50. My upcoming birthday put me just 2 years away from that milestone. We also have been experiencing some money troubles. So it could have many causes.
Let's jump down below the orange snow doodle and see what happens
What ever the cause I was hurting emotionally. I was grumpy, sleeping less than normal and that wasn't much to begin with. I was angry and had no outlet for my anger. I knew this was dangerous. When I was much younger I had a horrible temper. I would bottle everything up and then it would explode outward. As I grew older I learned how to let off anger so I didn't blow. Kind of like a pressure cooker, that little thingy at the top that let out some pressure so it didn't explode on the stove. My little thingy wasn't available. It used to be gardening and building stuff. My back kind of put that stuff out of reach.
I hate feeling depressed. to me it really is a different mind set. I'm usually the typical optimistic guy. The glass is always half full. So I had to change something to kick this depression in the butt. Hard to change the money situation. Heck I am trying to figure out how to pay my pain management bill so I can keep getting services. I owe them $800.00 bucks and no freaking hope of coming up with it any time soon. Any time I get extra money it goes towards the normal bills. I changed the only thing I could. I took some time off and got some sleep.
That did the trick. Something so simple as getting some sleep helped me get out of my 2 month funk. I am back and happily enjoying my monkey tail fantasies. I still have no clue how I am going to pay pain management. At the moment I can't even come up with $25 or $50 bucks to knock it down a bit. I still have my back pain. That won't change either. It is my life and my future. It will get worse. I may end up in a wheelchair. Don't matter one bit. I have my monkey tail ! I can handle anything, in fact I can handle more because of the tail !
So when life kicks you in the nads just stop and think of having a monkey tail. Imagine all the fun you can have. When you get asked what you are chuckling about you can answer My Monkey Tail ! They will scratch their heads and look at you funny but life goes on.