It's been a few crummy weeks, but what's all that new about that sort of thing for most of us. A FCW is in the life plan for nearly everyone. Unavoidable. Can't run or hide or outpace it. As grownups, or what passes for being all growed-up, we have the opportunity during that passage of time to learn to cope a little better and, hopefully, come out of the other side of the FCW a stronger and more balanced person.
I'm certainly hoping that will be the result of my recent opportunities. Yeah, hoping, that's me.
Anyway, I am taking this opportunity to do a bit of forced recovery. And a whole lot of whining and complaining. From these past few weeks. My vision has been terrible. The diplopia from my surgery is more consistent and painful than I had hoped that it would be after nearly ten months. Work is a strain. I sat outside this evening, reading until the light faded, and there wasn't any position that I could contort my head in order to see a single image of anything. If I wern't patching, I wouldn't be able to read at all. Hopefully, I will be able to try prisms sometime in the next month or so and that will help.
The nerve pain in my face is one of the main issues that I am hoping to resolve at my appointment with my surgeon next month. He keeps telling me that I have experienced all of the recovery that I am going to achieve. Great.
However, I am so sick and tired of it that I could just, well I don't know exactly what I could just do, but I'm sure that it would be scary. My daughter has done some research about this and seems to feel that I should ask about having botulinum toxin injections to help with the pain. I appreciate her efforts, but I think that she is just plain tired of seeing me in so much pain. I cannot take any pain relievers for it because it is so irregular and unpredictable. Sometimes it is fine, kind of rumbling along at a low level and I can go for hours, sometimes even days, without it being much of a problem. Other days it keeps happening over and over and over.
It can be triggered by my hair moving across my face, or if I forget and inadvertently touch my skin. Easy to do when you are concentrating on something else. It wakes me up at night if I accidentally brush across the skin or roll into my pillow. Other times there doesn't seem to be anything that triggers the pain. When it happens, the only relief is to apply strong, direct pressure over the entire quadrant of my face. It only takes a short time for the pain to reduce in intensity, but it leaves me shaking and exhausted. Just washing my hair has become a dreaded task that I avoid at all costs. I've taken to using a dry, brush-in-and-out shampoo, but if you've ever used one of those you know how unsatisfactory a result that is.
Anyway, the past couple of weeks have been terrible, especially the past few days, and I simply needed to come here and moan and groan about it. I really have a cool and groovy life and this, all of this, is really just so insignificant in that larger picture and I really shouldn't be complaining about it. But, here I am, because this is the only safe and understanding place to talk about this kind of thing.
Alright. I think I'm finished now. Yes, I already know that I'm a big crybaby about this, that I should be able to put it into perspective and that I should be eternally and enormously grateful that the surgery made it possible for me to keep driving. Still.
Just ignore me.
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