I just don't know...

I love having Amos with me whilst going to therapy.  Today, because of a question that my therapist asked, I was able to pull him into my lap and hold onto him whilst answering her.  If it wouldn't drive Amos nuts, I would give him a bath every Wednesday night so that I could have lavender aroma therapy whilst I am having therapy.

But there is a cost to having Amos with me.  And it is a cost I am increasingly finding it difficult to pay.  You see, everyone and their dog (okay, just everyone in this case) sticks his or her hand out in Amos' face before asking if he/she can pet him.  For Amos' part, he handled the three intrusions today quite well, his best yet.  But I didn't.

One was another therapist.  Personally, I think she should have known not to get so close to a perfect stranger.  I was sitting in a chair with Amos behind me and so she bent over me to get to him.  I could smell her perfume or shampoo or whatever and I wanted to shove her away.  It was a rough beginning to my visit, especially since we were approached on the way into the building.

But on the way out, the doors to the rather minuscule elevator—an elevator that I have to screw up my courage just to enter twice each appointment—opened to a veritable crowd.  There were three adults and four children all crammed in the space the width of a regular door.  I wanted to slam the door back shut!  Only I couldn't.  All I could do is snake my way through all those folk.

Amos wasn't all that comfortable, and two of the children tried to pet him.  Now, he is getting better if someone sticks a hand in front of his face, but Amos does NOT want to be petted.  Not even by me.  I was worried he would snip at one of the children and was trying to get away from them by darting around a corner, but when you are trembling from head to toe, it is difficult to dart.  SIGH.

The whole situation made me think that I should start leaving Amos at home.  And, to be honest, to leave myself at home.  It is getting harder and harder and harder to leave.  I wish I could be the Bubble Boy, surrounded by plastic.  However, if you look into his life, it was rather heartbreaking.  He shouldn't even be a half-hearted wish.  I just want a large, large cushion around me.

I am weary of trying to hide how afraid I feel when I am out and about.  SIGH.





Speaking of that, I watched the first episode of Mike Rowe's new show "Returning the Favor."  The first episode is about a veteran who spends his life helping combat veterans deal with PTSD and TBI.  It was so ... comforting to watch.  I mean, it totally STINKS that there is so little help for veterans with PTSD.  It is hard for me to live with it, but it must be unfathomably difficult for them.  They have so very much going on in their worlds that to add PTSD on top of it ... I cannot imagine.

In the episode, we learn that Alabama has the highest rate of veteran suicides—28 a day—and there is not a single program to help veterans with PTSD and TBI reintegrate into society.  That is abdominal.  Truly.

It was weird, watching the show, for me to see folk who had suffered so much.  I know that comparing gets you nowhere, but I did.  Compare.

A couple of hours before my appointment, I had a severe flare of pudendal neuralgia.  There I was screaming PLEASE STOP.  STOP DOING THIS TO ME.  PLEASE STOP.  Usually, after things move along, it stops.  But, as it has a few times, the pain went on and on and on.  I wanted to die.  I wanted to call my friend Mary and have her speak Gospel to me.  I wanted the sun to go Super Nova.

As the time dragged on and on and one, I wondered if it was going to end before I had to leave for my appointment.  I couldn't fathom driving there, much less concentrating on talking.  A part of me was disappointment.  A part of me was relieved.

Anyone who knows me will fall on the floor laughing, but I oft find myself wishing I could just stop talking.  Stop speaking.  Just stop.  SIGH.

About forty-five minutes before I had to leave, the pain ebbed.  As before, on that terrible terrible day, I was faced with the aftermath of the pudendal neuralgia flare.  A different kind of pain.  A soreness.  That feeling of sitting on a stone.

I had read in the support group about using ice packs, so I worked up the courage to bring icepacks with me.  I sat on them and they did help, but I was too chicken to try and adjust them.  I hurt on the left side, even though there is not so much a side.  There is definitely a left to the pain.  I know the pudendal nerve goes through the SI joint, so I am trying to work out how to sit on ice packs ... or lean on them ... in such a way that I could have relief.

I did adjust them once I got home and think I might have gotten a bit more relief.  Tomorrow I see the GP and I thought I would ask her to help me.  Is that a GP thing??  I was thinking she could point out to me where my SI joint is.

That the pain ended before my appointment was an incredible relief.  That I had such a severe flare on my increased dose of baclofen drives me to despair.  Life with chronic pain ... I just don't know how to live it.