Painful Perspective On Life...

Sitting here at the beginning of what promises to be a good year I suddenly became aware of the fact that my left shoulder was quite painful. The problem was almost certainly caused by my hunching up my shoulders whilst knitting the cuff of a new pair of fingerless gloves for several hours last night. The solution to this being the tried and trusted taking of strong painkillers in combination with mild painkillers (as neither works by themselves) and the application of topical voltarol gel.

Sometimes I worry about all my aches and pains. Generally speaking they range between mild to extreme pain, or put another way between 2 & 10 on the numerical pain scale, ie 0 = no pain to 10 = the worst pain possible. Thankfully today's pain probably reached no higher than a manageable 4. I suppose the difference between manageable and unmanageable is the extent to which my activities are impeded. Recently will-power and a little practical help in the form of various splints and belts has also helped.

So here am I feeling sorry for myself today, while those close to me are suffering far greater discomforts. So far my problems have been successfully treated with various lower level medications of a narcotic and non-narcotic nature, adaptation of routine, posture and sheer bloody determination while I've had the priviledge of supervising and managing the administration of sustained released controlled drugs, mild non-narcotic, mild narcotic & non-steroidal preparations to somebody whose need is far greater than my own. In addition to this has been the application of 3 lidocaine patches hacked into pieces and distributed along the lines of pain.

Perspective has much to do with one's experience of that most subjective of all experiences, ie pain. Thank goodness your pain isn't mine but I do wish that my pain was yours. If it were possible I would hop into your body for the duration and use my knowledge of pain control, etc to make the experience so much better for you. Only I can't! As bad as some of my worse days can be, they aren't a patch on the acute pain that you could so easily avoid if only you were able to understand what I can and better yet enact. This isn't going to happen easily...