Today is Wednesday, October 2nd, 2019. On Monday, October 7th, I'll received my 27th lumbar epidural. I received my first in December, 2013.
Always, always, always, in this final week leading up to the epidural, time slows down. I trudge through a dark place of isolation and self-flagellation for my utter incompetence to accomplish what I "should" and what much of human culture would deem as anything of value. Yesterday was one of those deep, dark days.
The cognitive and physical fatigue go off the up-and-down, back-and-forth rails of manageability and send my mind and body careening down an uncontrollable track that feels it will never end. I remind my self that it will end. That this happens every time I hit week twelve. It seems to be unavoidable. Then my elephant, using Jonathan Haidt's metaphor for the automatic part of me that controls so much of me and all humans, starts chattering, When will I ever learn? I know this always happens at week twelve. Why can I not adapt and adjust?
The truth is, I have adapted. I do adjust. It's just so fucking hard.
5 comments:
I am sorry you are having such a hard week, as you indicated you do on the last week before your epidural. Any chance your doctor would agree to making it one week shorter between injections? Take heart, my friend. As my mom used to say, 'It is always darkest before the dawn." I found that to be literally true during the first block of my second year at Emporia on BP. As we approached the 6:00 hour, it got very dark just before the sun rose over the horizon.
SP
Hey SP...thanks. <3
I can get an occasional epidural before week 12, which I've done from time to time. But it can't be on an ongoing basis. The issue is long term steroids and their side effects...one of those being. especially with the epidural, bone loss in my spine. And there is the daily prednisone which I titrate up and down...and that's a bit more complicated in the week before my epidural and the week before my neck injections (at week 6). It's a continual balancing act, weighing benefits to risks.
As crazy as it sounds, biking helps me through "week 12" and other rough times. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I've not been able to bike this week. I'm hoping that I can bike tomorrow, and get a little peek of dawn before my big dawn on Tuesday/Wednesday when the epidural kicks in. ;)
I know we are all looking forward to the cooler weather this weekend.
Thanks again...
Much love...
I am very glad your biking gives you relief and a chance to go to places you enjoy and have the freedom that biking brings. When I was allowed to ride my bike uptown and around the neighborhood when I was 13 (my mother was overprotective), it gave me such a feeling of freedom. I biked a lot around town with Nancy and our friend, Debbie, during the ages of 13-15, until, of course, a driver's license and my mom's Corvair, made me mobile. Mama did not drive because of anxiety, so after my father left home when I was 13, I got rides from Daddy to school, but the only way I got to go anywhere else, like at night, was when Nancy's sweet father came to pick me up.
Gotta love that biking!
SP
Awww....good memories are good for the soul. <3
PS: Thanks for sharing SP! Love it! :)
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