It’s been a battle of epic proportions; me vs Trigeminal Neuralgia. I’ve hit it with chemical warfare, biological warfare and even hand to hand combat but it keeps getting back up time after time. I tell myself the disease may win the battle but I will win the war! But to be completely honest, most days I just want to give up. I just want to lie down and stop fighting. Some days I even come close. I lie in bed and think to myself, “will it really make a difference if I get up today? What will happen if I just stay here forever? Will anything really change?”
I’ve even had moments where I’ve crawled back into my bed and covered my head willing myself to just quit. But my mind just won’t shut up. It keeps nattering at me. What if the next thing you try is the answer? What if you give up and the cure is right there? What if you wake up one day and the disease is gone or there’s a medical breakthrough?
I try to silence this voice that goes around and around preventing me from achieving the peace of giving up, but it just won’t quit. I look at all the medications on my night stand and think, “you know you can shut this voice up once and for all”.
I tell myself I’ve become a liability to those I love so much, an albatross around their necks. I flinch at the pity I see in their eyes when this evil disease steals my voice. I rage at the lack of understanding when, during a particularly brutal attack, a well meaning service person shoots a cute little glib remark my way like “oh it’s okay I’m trained in first aid”. What the fuck are you going to do against the worst pain known to man with your fucking first aid!!? My apologies. A momentary lapse.
When I get to that place where I think I might just be able to convince my mind to let me quit, a running movie of all the things I might miss starts playing in my head. My mind shows me my children moving forward in their lives experiencing all sorts of wonderful things. It shows them buying their first homes, finding their life partners, grandchildren being born. It shows me all the places I’ve never been and all the things I’ve never seen. It’s incessant in it’s optimism, relentless in its possibilities. It just won’t stop!
So here I go again, strapping on my gloves and stepping in the ring to do go another round with this evil disease.
Walking the Dog 