[Blog (Non-channeled) May]

Last time you and I talked, I was pondering shoulds and control issues and was summoning the powers of my white rhinoceros. That was days ago. So long ago. You know how everything changes, sometimes, in an instant? One moment the world is THIS way, and the next, because of a bus crash or something that came in the mail or just a simple phrase whispered in your ear, the world is something completely new, something you never could have imagined before that moment.

I’m being a little dramatic, but my week has been like that.

Monday my doctor got to see the gaping hole he created in my foot. I warned him about my intolerance for pain. I did warn him. Several times. Matthew held my hand while the dressing came off. My pain was worse than any time before, but underneath my painsounds I could hear my doctor exclaiming happily. “It looks great! Wow! This is great!”

Great?

[Blog (Non-channeled) May 2010]

There was a reason why I kept hearing my inner voice telling me in the hospital to accept all the pain medication I was offered. It felt odd, like I was telling a not-truth, because I felt remarkably little pain then. I was almost sure the nurses were looking at me skeptically, but they continued to give and I took. I kept hearing that it would help me rest and heal.

When I returned home I continued to feel remarkably good, so I took less medication. Didn't think I needed it. Was even "over it," maybe. Monday night I felt great and even danced; Tuesday was less good, but I felt I had overdone Monday and was paying for it. Wednesday things really went downhill.

In the hospital they ask you to rate pain on a scale of 1-10. By Wednesday I was back up into 7-8 territory. I had scaled back taking medication when I felt better because I had a limited amount of it and my linear mind told me that healing happens linearly; that if I felt good on Monday I should be feeling even better on Wednesday.

A should! I knew I’d find some in here. There are plenty of shoulds connected to the concept of pain for me, and they’ve all come up this past week. Most of them – like most shoulds – are pretty unreasonable and filled with ego, but they are present nonetheless.

[Blog (Non-channeled) May 2010]

After skating along this past week high above the clouds on the love and well-wishes of so many (and also judicious use of pain medication), yesterday I found myself falling. Off balance. At loose ends. And uncomfortable.

Not only did this 3-inch hole in my foot begin to REALLY HURT, just when my linear mind thought it ought to stop hurting, but I lost my balance entirely. Oh, it’s more than a metaphor. This pain makes me a total wuss and even though I am allowed to take baby steps on my toes aided by my new friend Cane, I didn’t want to. It hurt. And I realized how housebound I am. Can’t take the trash to the curb. Can’t water the flowers out front. Can just get from bedroom to kitchen to living room and back again, circling round the same triangle all day as little as possible, hopping on one leg.

There is a metaphor here somewhere.

Off balance. And not liking it.