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It is my third day of joints that ache and throb as a side effect of whatever-plague-it-is-I-have. And it occurred to me that despite the side effects of pain that I notice -- being slower on the uptake, the world feeling a little too bright and intense -- that our bodies are such amazing things. We put them through so much crap, and it's only when they fail on us that we really appreciate what we do every day. I haven't been able to knit through this. (Okay, I admit to sneaking in ten rows on a mitten today, but I paid attention and stopped at the first hint of my index fingers and wrist twinging). For the first two days, before I realized that the stabbing pain behind my eyes was actually a sensitive sinus headache because I was so congested, I had trouble with TV, though I realized sometime late last night that if I looked away a lot, my eyes wouldn't throb at me so much.
Then I realized: I still don't have a pin on what some of my friends have to endure: they suffer migraine, or trigemminal neuralgia, or incredibly severe arthritis, or nerve impingement... all gracefully, all getting on with their lives, and all able to still be very smart and likable people. Me getting sick is an occasional phenomenon -- once a semester, for a final exam, and it's somewhat self-imposed. I recognize that I stress out, and if I really, really tried hard to work on my unhealthy mental habit of freaking out over a big test, I could get rid of being badly sick like this. But it's not once a month, the way my migraine-suffering friends often complain about. It doesn't flare once every few days when it rains in the fall and winter, the way that my friend with the never-healed-properly-ankle complains abut. It isn't an every-day reminder of throbbing (although right now, my wrist hurts when I lift a glass of water, so I'm making Neil get me things more, and oh boy, does it remind me of how much constant pain forces you to limit your spoons). Whatever I am feeling now, it is finite.
So oddly enough, I feel very grateful for the reminder of how graceful people can be under pressure, how much I love being healthy, and how glad I'll be when I'm there again.
Then I realized: I still don't have a pin on what some of my friends have to endure: they suffer migraine, or trigemminal neuralgia, or incredibly severe arthritis, or nerve impingement... all gracefully, all getting on with their lives, and all able to still be very smart and likable people. Me getting sick is an occasional phenomenon -- once a semester, for a final exam, and it's somewhat self-imposed. I recognize that I stress out, and if I really, really tried hard to work on my unhealthy mental habit of freaking out over a big test, I could get rid of being badly sick like this. But it's not once a month, the way my migraine-suffering friends often complain about. It doesn't flare once every few days when it rains in the fall and winter, the way that my friend with the never-healed-properly-ankle complains abut. It isn't an every-day reminder of throbbing (although right now, my wrist hurts when I lift a glass of water, so I'm making Neil get me things more, and oh boy, does it remind me of how much constant pain forces you to limit your spoons). Whatever I am feeling now, it is finite.
So oddly enough, I feel very grateful for the reminder of how graceful people can be under pressure, how much I love being healthy, and how glad I'll be when I'm there again.
