On the Days You Decide to Push Through the Pain

I wake up six times throughout the night in pain, but I somehow find a way to go back to sleep each time. When I finally wake up and can’t go back to sleep because the pain is too severe, I stagger out of bed to my recliner chair.  The walk feels like I’m being stabbed with knives with every step that I take. I sit down and check the clock – it’s 1 p.m. How did I sleep so late?! I have to pick up my daughter from school at 2:30! The pain is so intense, and an hour and a half isn’t a lot of time to have my pain medication kick in. Argh! What am I going to do is what I think to myself.

I text my husband, I tell him how bad the pain is. I tell him I have vomited from the pain (true – sadly) and that I don’t know if I can do this. The pain is too intense. I need him to tell me I can push through this pain as I have done in the past. This time though I really need to believe him because I don’t believe I can do it.

It’s 1:45 – I don’t feel any better. I feel the same agonizing pain. I have to get dressed. I have to get dressed?! Ouch. Ow. Dammit. This is killing me. Trying just to dress myself in sweats and a T-shirt feels like I’m running a marathon. I start to sweat and shake from the pain. I finally get my clothes on and now it’s time for the shoes – I slip them on with the most pain yet. I’m as ready as I can make myself.

It’s 2:15 p.m., time to get in the car and drive to my daughter’s school to pick her up. I live on the second floor, which means I have to get down this flight of stairs to make it to get my baby. I push through the agony. I climb down the stairs slowly and filled with agony. I make it to my car.

Once in my car I adjust my seat and put on the seat warmer to help loosen my muscles, hoping to have something, anything to calm my aching muscles. I drive to my daughter’s school where I wait for her to get out. I pick her up and drive us both back home. Once we’re home my daughter has to help me take off my jeans and socks (socks hurt my sensitive feet) and change into more comfortable pants.

My daughter is 9. She spends her first minutes home every day helping her mother change. I never pictured when I was pregnant that one day I would be the one that needed help changing, not the other way around. My angel of a daughter never complains about helping me, she never complains about the extra things she needs to do around the house since I am unable to. My daughter is a sweet little angel who just wants to help her Mommy feel better. The fact that I rely on my child to help me is like a knife in the chest.

It’s 3 p.m., I sit down in the recliner, take more pain medication and cry. I cry and cry until I am empty of tears. I then realize that I have nothing left to give, no more gas in this engine. The pain has reached a limit where I can’t push through anymore. I must just sit down and experience the pain, as I can’t escape it anymore. I guess I pushed too hard, but who would think pushing too hard is getting up, getting dressed and picking up your daughter from school even though you’re in nightmare pain? I certainly never thought this would be my life, but I have learned that I must deal with it, no matter how much pain I am in. This type of hurt will last for days and days, and pushing through it has made it worse.

Unfortunately for me, the cost is lying in bed for three days in so much pain you puke from it. But sometimes I need to just push through and deal with the extra hurt at the end of the push. We all do it, regardless of the cost, when we need to. This just takes all my spoons from the rest of the week for today, and that is the choice I had to make this time. Maybe this won’t be the choice I make next week, but I had to make it today.