I can manage my own pain. I can drink. I can go to the doctor and get a prescription. I can exercise. I can write a story about it. I've done it a million times! But I don't want to see the people I love tortured and suffering.
Most people manage pain by eating, drinking, smoking, distracting themselves, working harder. That's just managing pain, the pain that comes from not feeling fully alive from not growing.
I've never formally trained for pain management, but I have a good understanding of how to conquer it. I just analyze the pain, feel it in the moment, and then mentally become numb to it.
And I have learned now to live with it, learned when to expect it, how to outwit it, even how to regard it, when it does come, as more friend than lodger. We have reached a certain understanding, my migraine and I.
For 14 years, I'd been on medication for the pinched nerve, the arthritis, the muscle spasms in my neck, and I'd lost my tolerance for pills. If I had a single drink, the alcohol, on top of the pills, would make me groggy.
Unnatural constructs - cities and medical pain management - have always seemed pretty good to me.
I've learned a lot about pain management.
I think the mindset is always to think that you are never going to play pain-free.
I have two false hips, a wired-up right knee, two crushed discs and scoliosis. If I don't dance, I seize up.
