At some point, this made me think the good times would keep up, and I was no longer feeling like dead weight to everyone around me. Reality is a bitch, though, and doesn't care about anyone. Eventually, the work began to dry up. Every month, the amount of work decreased to the point I am today, with barely any paid work in the last three months.

We have a saying here: “no money, no vices”. I had gotten used to a manageable level of pain (keep in mind that what I consider manageable is still a crazy amount of pain), and I had forgotten how bad it gets. I didn't forget this shit is awful, but I had forgotten exactly how painful it can get.

Let me give you a fresh example: last Monday, at dinner, my fingers were hurting so much I could barely cut my own food.

Now, I'm back to literally burning my back just to get a small relief. I'm not joking or exaggerating. Almost a week later, I still have blisters from putting a hot water bag directly on my back a few times per day. If I don't brute force the pain signals with other stuff, like the burning feeling, I can't get pain relief. This is what I suspect happens with the weed: the increase in serotonin production forces the brain to allocate more resources to it, leaving less for the pain signals.

I'm currently trying to find another work option, but it's not an easy thing to do when you have these constraints.

#ChronicPain #Fibromyalgia #Ramblings #Pain

This last one is a bitch! Every few years, my sinusitis headaches become so bad that it feels like I spent a week hitting my head on the walls. This year is an example of this: it's not even winter, and I've had a headache from sinusitis for almost two weeks, with some days so bad that I could barely keep my eyes open and had to take almost twice the recommended amount of pills just to be able to decrease it a little.

The flu wouldn't cause me this much pain.

If this is already happening during autumn, it will probably be much more painful during winter. This is just what I needed: even more pain... It's not like the fibromyalgia keeps me in a ton of pain 24/7...

#Sinusitis #Ramblings

#Ramblings #Entertainment #TV

You may know this as brain fog. Covid brought this issue to the spotlight. The difficulties concentrating and lack of mental energy are severe issues in chronic pain (and we now know that it also occurs with COVID-19), and they're hard to deal with. But, at least to me, the worst part of brain fog is the cognitive impairment.

Cognitive impairment is a broad term. Wikipedia has a great page on it if you want to check it out. One of the areas that has impacted me is how I express myself. I've lost count of the times I wanted to say one thing, my brain couldn't figure out the best way to do it, either because I couldn't recall some of the words I wanted or I couldn't do the proper association of ideas and concepts to express myself. I always went the kind of similar to what I want to say route because it felt identical then.

Of course, if your brain is borking itself, this feeling of similarity can be misleading. And, oh boy, it is! More times than I would like to admit.

Just before watching Shiza's stream, I had a quick online chat with someone. I wanted to reply with something, but I couldn't get my ideas sorted to express myself as I intended, so I chose the kind of similar route. At the time, I thought I had replied in a way comparable to what I intended.

During her stream, I recalled this quick convo and checked what I had written. Lo and behold, I didn't pass the message as intended and even sounded a bit like an idiot. I know I'm an idiot (we all are in someone's eyes, one way or another), but I'm not that kind of idiot.

IRL, this is even worse. Online, sometimes I wait a while before replying so I can garner the mental energy to do so. I don't have this luxury in person, and it can backfire. As you can imagine, this creates a lot of stress for me. Even if I say that I didn't express myself adequately and try to explain what I intended to speak to the best of my ability, I always end up mad at myself.

No wonder I'm always stressed, and some medical exams picked up an abnormal heart rate... My brain is like a single-core, single-threaded, 400MHz CPU with 128Mb of RAM, trying to compile the latest stable Firefox.

PS: You should take a look at Shizamura's work (she's on Mastodon) and even commission a drawing. Just check out the drawing she made of my baby boy, Chico. Gorgeous!

#Ramblings #ChronicPain #BrainFog

I'm joking, but I'm a bit concerned. I hope this is a mild arrhythmia and nothing more, as my doctor suspects. I don't need any more health issues in my life.

#Ramblings #Health

#Fibromyalgia #Noise #Ramblings

Logging in took me on a journey down memory lane. It was like opening a time capsule more than a decade after burring it. So many memories came back from those times long gone.

What a blast from the past.

#Memories #Ramblings