Stress

So I have a list of topics I have yet to post about and I haven't been feeling well enough to write about any of them today.  It's very frustrating.  I'm feeling more pain for the past few days than I have since probably before surgery.  I haven't done anything exerting and yet there it is.  I guess I could direct you to the posts on tiredness or setbacks but I'm typing my post today because usually I would not chronicle today at all.  I was in pain so I had no desire to think about anything interesting I could write about earlier and now I am ok because I took extra pain meds but not thinking as clearly as I would like.  So normally I would just skip today, but days like these are important in understanding what my life is like still even though I would love to hide them away and deny I still have them.  Instead, I will give you a brief insight into my stream of consciousness during times like these.  

I hate to let myself admit it but today's pain makes me nervous.  It feels like pre-surgery pain...  I am hoping that I can attribute it to the overly stressful two months I've had because otherwise something might be wrong and I just do not want that at all.  I'm supposed to be gaining strength and overall health and having LESS pain, but that is not happening right now.  I was annoyed to be feeling bad while my sister was visiting because I couldn't even really sit and chat.  Small talk is the first thing to go when I feel pain.  (For my purposes, I would say that I'd been feeling "discomfort" mostly.  It's annoying and can interfere with me get my real life back, but it is way better than what I would call "pain."  For the past maybe three days I'd call it pain.) 

It's weird for me because I wouldn't really say I "feel" stress ever.  Even in my normal life or school, I would have deadlines and competitions and I would feel competitive or tired but not overly "stressed."  It isn't a word I processed very much.  I had never experienced what anxiety felt like before I got sick either.  I guess I am overly rational so I just thought about what to do next or if I had a setback I just had to figure out the next step to get back on track.  So now I know that dealing with the death of a family member and my mom's cancer diagnosis are stressful events... but I don't really FEEL stressed.  I guess more to the point, they are stressors, which create stress.  I could use a few less stressors for a few months!  It is quite possible that my mind and body process stress differently, which I realize, or that I process my stress subconsciously, which could be why I have always had difficulty falling asleep.  I don't know.  But I can acknowledge I have had what normal people would probably consider a stressful holiday season.  I also know that my doctors and anything I have read keep "stressing" (see what I did there?) that it is important for my health to limit stress.  Makes sense.  Plus, if endometriosis is an auto-immune disease, which is possible, stress would definitely not be good for a compromised immune system.  So I should eliminate stressors in my life.  Which would be great, no arguments from me.  Unfortunately I am not choosing or causing any of these events and I'm dealing with them the best way I know but maybe it's not good enough for my body.  The pain also prevents me from doing cardio, which I always my go-to stress-reliever.  And there's the twisted cycle.

So, that's my day.  It took me hours to get the pain under control because I hadn't figured it would be as bad as it was and once it gets started I end up needing to take more meds than if I knew to take more in the beginning, if that makes sense.  Pain always makes me tired and taking more pain meds than I have taken for a while makes me feel pretty loopy right now.  

I hope I'm just stressed out.  I don't want to think about the other options.  Of course, it just happens to fall during the 2 weeks my doctor is away... although I don't know that she would know what to do yet until we see if this pain sticks around or not.  So for the next few days I will try to zone out and stay calm as much as possible.  I will go to my zen space.  If I don't post, then I'm still not feeling good (and yes, I mean good, not well).  If I do post, I think now might be a great time to share about the coping strategies I've developed to deal with pain.  

Man, I hope this made sense and was mostly coherent.  Fingers crossed.