Dolorous Stroke

Pain can be very distracting.
Counterintuitively, it can also be very Clarifying.

Since late Summer, we've had recurring “Rain Events”...repeated rounds of low pressure, followed by high, that have kept my Skeleton in chaos.
Coupled with Expeditions to Doctors and Real Grocery Stores, as well as the continuing project of dismantling my Library, and hunting the Serpent, and on top of the normal every day routine of dishes and laundry, and I find myself in bed much more often than I would like.
Even after all this time, I still find it difficult to Accept my fate....let alone Love it(Amor Fati).
I feel, at the same time, both older than dirt, and far too young to be in such a sad state. Still, one Track of my Mind remains clinically detached...and that part is amazed by the complexity of the Body and the Mind.
Nociceptors are fascinating...especially when they are blocked. For many years, and unbeknownst to me, my damaged hip effectively blocked the Pain from the knee, below. When the hip was replaced, at long last, and the Pain from that joint was removed....suddenly, the damaged Knee reasserted itself.
Similar weirdness is evident in other places. My mysterious back pain...with a locus around T-5...seems to block Pain sensations from below that level. When the Back is really hurting for some reason, I don't feel the ankle, knees, or lower back, as much as I normally would.
But I feel the elbow and wrists and thumbs, that much more.
Now that I've seen a Rheumatologist...and now that he's ruled out Rheumatoid Arthritis....which was really just a formality, anyway...the Primary Diagnosis is in: Widespread Osteoarthritis.
IE: I did it to myself.Ha!

Secondary, is the Neuropathic strangeness in my right leg, from where they inadvertently Cut the big ass nerve, during my first...emergency...surgery,twenty three years ago.

I still suspect Fibromyalgia....I have too many of the tell-tales to do otherwise...
But the Rheumatologist I was able to see didn't seem interested in anything but RA...which was disappointing.
Fibro is still regarded by many in the Medical Establishment as somewhat Mythical...along the lines of Morgellons and Alien Abduction related ass pains.
Whatever.
It fits the symptoms better than any of the other, myriad potential causative pathologies.
Given all of this, my biggest daily challenge is Movement.
I must force myself to get out of bed, and move around the house...at the very least.
I force my unwilling and painful carcass to exercise....with a bicycle innertube, and a few weights...and, if I'm not feeling too terrible, hide and seek with my cat.
What's hardest to accept...even after all these years...is that it will never get better... indeed, that it will always get worse.
I've known this, on an intellectual level, for a long time...but that Reality, when it slaps you in your Brave Face...well...it's a hard thing.

It's much worse than I expected.
23 years ago, after I had recovered from the wreck, I was made acutely aware that I would need a hip by the time I was 40.
As I've said, there was nothing I could do to prepare for this certain eventuality...but I knew it was coming.
What I didn't know, was that it would not just be my hip...but most of my body...every bone I've broken, every ligament torn, every untreated injury to a joint...and a number of idiopathies.
After more than 30 years, I can no longer play guitar, without pain in my fingers.
Forget about hikes in the woods...about fishing...about sex.
I'll never know again what it's like to be Comfortable...to say nothing of pain-free.
In the winter, or after some necessary exertion (boxing up books), it hurts to turn over in my nest of 19 pillows.
The Psychological effects of all of this are largely overlooked by the Doctors....and by the Mundanes, too....
all those busy-bodies, and all those Haters...all of those who are so quick to Judge....so free of compassion, or of understanding.
After having been confronted by these folks...in my face...I find that the Agoraphobia I've struggled with for most of my life is even worse.
I not only fear getting too far away from home...but I fear the eyes and Judgment of small men...small women...at the ready with their sacks full of stones.

My Tea-ish acquaintances insist that I'm not who they're referring to, when they rail about the Moochers and Leeches...that, oh no...I of course deserve social services.
What they fail to understand, is that the attitudes and certainties that they visit upon strangers, while exempting me, are exactly what enables the terrible systems we have in place...
That sitting in Judgment over strangers, without knowing their individual situation...their personal circumstances...is exactly what is wrong with our country, today.

This unwarranted Judgment sometimes hurts more than the actual Pain.
I am therefore rather quick with the lash, sometimes, when one of these creatures dares to confront me.(Cavé, Asinum!)

Nevertheless, we should remember those with relatively invisible ailments, shut up in rooms, or leaning painfully on their grocery cart, when arguing about Healthcare, or the provision of “Welfare”...before we, ourselves, bray....and remove all doubt.