Painkillers
by Tommy
Firstly, okay guys, the House jokes were funny at the start, but c’mon, give them a rest, will ya?
Last night I had between 3.5 and 4.5 hours sleep.
Knee pain, which is chronic at this stage, was worst it’d been in a long time, so sleep just wouldn’t come. I finally drifted off some time between 01:30 and 3, finally.
At 4:30, I was woken by the pain. No, this wasn’t me waking naturally, or by some bird calling outside, this was the pain waking me.
I tried to get back to sleep, but eventually resigning myself to staying awake somewhere around 5.
I listened to a mix of audiobooks and music through headphones for a while, until about 8am, when I decided I probably shouldn’t fall asleep during physio, so I tried one last time to fall asleep.
I think my sleep soldiers found a vulnerable weakness in the knee pain’s relentless machine-gunning, as I fell asleep until 09:45.
That was the knee pain interfering in my normal workings. I never took anything for my knee because I said I’d just work through it. It wasn’t stopping me doing anything, so I ignored it. However, if it’s stopping me doing something like sleep, then I’m going to take something for it.
And now of course, despite what I said up top, you’re all comparing me to House with his Vicodin. Two things. I’m not on these full time. This morning was exceptional, because the pain was incredibly bad, stopping me functioning, and secondly, the meds aren’t a solution. They’re keeping me at a tolerable level of pain while we find out what’s causing it.
That’s what I find frustrating about all this. No one seems to have any idea what’s causing this. I’m getting an MRI on Wednesday in Dublin which *should* tell us the cause, and that should give us a treatment.
So, reiterating, the pain meds aren’t permanent. They are for the time being, as I continue to strengthen up the muscle, which should ease the pain. A natural painkiller.
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I finished writing this at 20:47 on Monday night, but I’m publishing it at 3am on Tuesday as a little nod. I wonder if I’ll be awake when this goes out..