I sat there, limp, on my antique Swahili divan couch, which is endowed with gold and cream covers, my body propped up with pillows as it could no longer hold its form. I sat there, numb, my arms like noodles splayed between my legs as I assessed my situation. I could feel the pain emanating from the top of my cerebellum, courageously beaming down my spine and spreading to every inch of my being. Every joint in my body was having a different conversation, each speaking in the same language of PAIN! Each with a slightly different dialect.
…I mean, I needed my head to be propped up and held, for me to drink from a straw, and as I tried to hold anything the language of my fingers was very loudly expressed as โI CAN’T HOLD THAT!โ with a pleading tone of โPlease don’t make me.โ … I was not in good shape
The Breakthrough
I sat there limp, not much thought going through my mind until I noticed my ceiling fan. White, fashionably winged with a gold center. โItโs a beautiful fan,โ I thought. Then the breakthrough arrived.
“Ohhh. Thatโs what Iโm thankful for.”
It was funny. It was a moment in which the realization came before the analysis. Usually, my realizations arrive after an analysis. But this was different.
…
My brain was on fire. This fire wasn’t as bad as others, but it was still debilitating. So thinking was slow, speaking was slow, remembering was slow, and understanding was slow. But that thought charged through all the fog and arrived like a bullet train. Settling itself elegantly on the ceiling fan. โOhโฆ thatโs why Iโm gratefulโ it was funny because then a question arose, “What do you mean?”
Then I got the pleasure of indulging myself in observing a lovely conversation unfold in my mind, pulling me far from the pulsating throbs of the many aches of my body.
The Conversation
So the conversation began.
“Ohhhhhhโฆ.. so thatโs why Iโm grateful.“
“Why? What do you mean?“
“Well, when I wake up in the morning Iโm always in a chorus of gratitude… Singing many thanks as I assess my body from the night.“
Backstory: There is usually pain, the pain range changes, but it has been a very long time since I have woken up with pain any less than 5 on a scale of 0-10. I think the day I wake up with a pain level of about 4 or 3, I might just run a marathon, but then that would bring me back to the pain level of infinity on a pain scale of 0-10. On this pain scale, I occasionally get infinity, but infinity doesn’t come up very often and when it does, itโs usually because I slipped up in some way in regards to securing my environment and diet, or something out of my control happened, like the building being painted without my knowledge. That’s a story for a different day.
So there I was, observing the conversation:
“I never really know why I am so grateful, but there is always a part that feels in debt, almost as if the number of thanks and gratitude I say out loud and feel through every part of me will pay some of that debt. I sing my thanks, I emanate my gratitude and I write my gratitudeโฆ long before I get out of bed. Some parts never understand why the extreme gratitude and to be honest, I don’t think the conscious mind ever really understands these degrees of gratitude, but at this moment, limp, in extreme amounts of pain, as I looked at that fan. Something clicked.“
“What clicked?”
“Thisโฆ thisโฆ this situation in which I can barely move, I can barely hold myself with my cane, I cannot hold anything, I can barely sit, so I must be propped upโฆ This… Thisโฆ Thiiisssssss… is why I emanate gratitude every morning.“
Acknowledging Reality
To be honest, I forget what it feels like to be on an infinite level of pain when it is not actively happening. I live with a regular scale of 5-10, and I forget the infinity pain levels because trust me, you would not want to remember that on a daily basis. But it seems that there is a part that hangs on desperately to that memory, even when the rest of us forget, that part remembers that small situations and circumstances can easily take away that functional pain scale of 5-10 and catapult me into a broken ceiling pain scale that has no measurable means.
I sat there filled with gratitude and in awe that I just had a breakthrough with my brain on fire. The fact that I got a moment of such clarity in moments filled with so much pain, filled me with an infinite amount of joy.
I forget when I am up and about, living life as close to normal as I possibly canโฆ believe meโฆ it takes a whole lot to make that happen. I forget just how sick I actually am.
Finding Gratitude in Pain
I forget that certain things can cause paralysis. I forget that certain things can keep me immobile for days, I forget that sometimes I might not be able to walk, and talking becomes a big challenge. As crazy as this sounds, those infinity pain scales are the biggest gifts I can get sometimes. They remind me just how fragile I amโฆ
They remind me just how fragile life actually is, and without a doubt, they put into perspective just how lucky and blessed I actually am. Iโm a lucky little sucker. I get to live, I get to live well, and without a doubt, I get to live better than a majority of the population of humanity. And not just thatโฆ Iโm that lucky little sucker that has managed to make it so far into life with such a debilitating condition.
I used to hate, fear, and often lament infinity pain scale days and weeks. But now, I have come to value them. I donโt look forward to themโฆ NEVERโฆ as a matter of fact, I do everything in my power to make sure they don’t happen. But when they do, I welcome them, they are an essential part of me, they are a reality check, a reminder, and more so, a valuable information tool in the memory bank of my doโs and donโts to stay alive. It’s a large memory bank with tons of filing cabinets and when a trigger catapults me into infinity, I get to analyze myself, my surroundings, and the days before and see what triggered me. If itโs something that is already in the memory banks, I reinforce the importance of avoiding that trigger and flag it. If it is something not in the memory banks, I add it with emphasis, urgently flagged with DANGER DANGER DANGER
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