I take it back - my last post. I was in my more optimistic mood, I guess, and thought there must be some way to manage life so I could have time to do bodywork and meditate, wash my socks, make and keep an Artist's Date, water the plants, all the etc. - the things I want to do, as opposed to the thousand things I have to do. Put on the organic nail polish that finally came from the internet, that I hope will keep my nails from peeling and breaking - yes, another side effect of the drugs that are saving my kidney.
But that was before all this weather rolled in here in the US. Major weather kicks up my less important health problem, fibromyalgia, causing pain, oh, just about everywhere that didn't already hurt. Fibro also causes depression, which inclines me to use obscenities to modify the word "body," as in "my *&@! body." Indeed, these things are not life-threatening and even all put together are not as bad as hemodialysis through a permacath in your neck (as I would have to have), I'm sure of that.
Maybe the worst thing about a fibro attack is the mental fog. I had more to say about that, but I had to go take my noontime pills, and I forgot it.
We have been writing on the kidney transplant e-list about pain. One guy is feeling much, much more pain immediately after his transplant than anyone led him to expect, so various people have been writing to him about it. The few who say they were back to work and off painkillers in two weeks have thankfully refrained from comment.) One woman wrote that she didn't feel fully recovered for a year. This led me to write back---
The whole first year? Oh, gosh. My post-transplant nurse says most people don't feel good - recovered, that is - for six to nine months. I told her nobody told me any of that. She said, "I know. But I tell everyone. That's why they don't want me anywhere near pre-transplant." But I would have done it anyway if I knew, because to me, dialysis is worse. And I decided I wanted to live. I'm almost at 4 months and still have plenty of pain and problems, though not abdominal pain. I won't list them, it would ruin my day.
But as you can see, I did just list some of it, though not every single place in my body that hurts. And here's the thing - when I wrote last Tuesday that one could somehow manage to have a life - you know, do your hobby or art, have fun cooking something good, get online and buy a thermal coffee mug - I must have been in a lot better mood. The one called "delusion."
Sometimes you can't manage. Every *&!@# thing goes wrong. That isn't even true. You think everything is going wrong. But in fact, 100,000 people here in Columbus lost power in the ice storm, and we didn't. A friend called to offer us his guest room if we needed a place to stay. I am going to have lunch with another friend right now. I found time this morning to move my pathetic orchids to a south window, and water them. Maybe sometimes you just feel the fundamental truth - there's quite a lot in life you can't manage. And the things you usually manage or count on, like electricity, can go to hell any minute. Then you're into spiritual practice, I guess, saying to yourself, I'm sure there's a pony somewhere in all this crap.
[image: "Silhouette Rose" by Ann Felicite. Artist's depiction of the individual complexity of the fibromyalgia pain syndrome.]
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