The Pain Equation (or The Mathematics of a Chronic Illness)

I have endometriosis.  Endometriosis is a chronic illness.  A chronic illness adds and subtracts different things to life.  In order to deal with this chronic illness, I realize I have come to look at much of my life as a mathematical equation.  I take a situation (a), subtract the toll it will take on my body (b), and if the answer is a positive number (c), I will attend or interact with that situation.  If the answer is a negative number (d), I'm staying home.  So, (a-b)>0 = c and (a-b)<0 = d.  I just boiled my disease down to some math!  Pay attention, all you students who are preparing for the SATs!

I can apply that equation to pretty much everything in my life: doing errands, exercising, hanging out with friends, going to the store, driving somewhere, attending a family party... It always works.  The great thing about my equation, is that I've just given up on feeling bad when I am unable to do something on a particular day.  It doesn't help me.  It doesn't lead to me feeling better, so I do the math and I live with the answer, or the lowest common denominator at times.  It took me a little time to come up with this equation, even though no imaginary numbers were involved and I didn't have to do any higher calculus stuff.  Seems pretty simple even.  Then I realized that my awesome illness equation (I'm still thinking of a good name for the patent) was missing something.  Math does not take into account the human factor.  For instance, missing Christmas Eve with my family is more upsetting than postponing my trip to the grocery store for a day.  Hmmm.

Now at this point I have learned two things.  One, I need to account for emotion in my EndoMath (?) and Two, I have been living with endometriosis for so long, that I pretty much forgot about the emotional part because I set it aside.  I felt bad when I missed my first Christmas.  I felt sad missing a week sitting on the beach.  Now, I assess how I feel, decide if I can go somewhere or not and I move on.  So really, my math in the first paragraph is how I have learned to deal with things NOW.  It's how I look at all situations.  But for the first year, I know I was not as good at many many things regarding Endo (including even knowing whether or not I had it!).  So for the first year, I would add a variable.  The Human Factor (x).  X is a variable; it is not a constant.  X is subject to change.  It can be positive or negative.  So for those just beginning to deal with chronic pain, invisible illnesses, or anything else, I think the equation would be (a-b)+x>0 = c and (a-b)+x<0 = d.

Math comes in handy throughout my day.  I wake up and my brain assesses my pain and rates it on a scale so I know how much medication I need to take to keep my pain under control.  I add up the hours in between taking pain medications.  I subtract the physical toll of activities.  I know that it takes a certain about of time (ie. another number) to get my body and brain ready for bed, as well as time to take all the nighttime pills.  I know how long it usually takes for me to fall asleep.  I know that if I am up past 4:00 A.M., I am probably going to have a bad next day.  (3:00 is borderline).  I know to count my "spoons" and make sure I have enough to last the day.  So really, I have broken this thing up into some easy enough algebra.  Now, there are also some days and some events that cannot be missed.  Some may be positive, like wedding, or some may be negative, like funerals.  There is not math for those days.  You just go and make it through the best way you can and worry about the toll it may take on your body when they are over. 

And while the tone of this post may not be ultra-serious, it is actually all true.  Just presenting another way to think about how I deal with my pain.  It may seem a little cold or dispassionate and I would absolutely agree with those assessments.  By trying to "do the math," I leave out the guilt.  I assume if I am thinking about a seeing a person/ having a thing/doing an activity, etc. that I WANT to be doing those things.  If I don't want to go, I don't give it a second (see the double-entendre there?) thought.  Anyway, I know that everyone processes information differently, so for those number loving, engineering majors, mathematically inclined people reading this blog, I hope this helps you understand my days and the thought processes behind them.