Palliativity 213: the unencumbered mind

My new daily muscle relaxant dosage is effective enough that I haven’t taken vicodin for a week. It’s been great to have my evenings back rather than just waiting until I am free of responsibilities in order to take pain meds. Although my personality doesn’t change much on opiates, there is a tinge of guilt when the venn diagram of the time I am with with my partner and the time I am on meds looks a lot like a circle.

My pain condition and the respective heavy meds I used to take all had the side effect of weighing me down. It’s pretty awesome that on the eve of my thirtieth, I am more energized and optimistic than I’ve been in a long time.

Although I am still conditioned to be methodical and over plan, this year has taught me that I really enjoy the thrill of spontaneity. This past Sunday, my partner and I decided to head out on the lakefront for a bike ride because it was a gorgeous autumn day. Sounds simple, but that’s the whole point. It felt great that I didn’t have to weigh how many spoons this would cost. I didn’t need to shoot-up with lidocaine beforehand or check that I had enough pain meds before heading out. I didn’t have to worry about how this would effect my sleep that night or where I would be on the pain-scale when I got home. My only concern that day was that I couldn’t shift my bike into third gear and I should probably try to fix it before our next ride.

Chronic pain isn’t  just a physical condition. It changes the entire way you live your life. Now I wake up each day excited because I am just starting to.

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