THIS POST MAY LEAVE YOU WITH SOME TROUBLESOME IMAGES...APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE
The past couple of weeks have been tricky in our house. There's been some stuff happening with doctors and hospitals where the imagining has been much scarier than the reality...but it's pretty much all good now and there doesn't seem to be too much to worry about...for which relief, much thanks.
So...nothing serious to deal with but a couple of things going on nevertheless, one of which has been, quite literally, a pain in the ass. A very ordinary pain in the ass...experienced by many people if the array of preparations to deal with said pain is anything to go by, and actually, it might explain the apparently random crankiness and incivility that makes up a lot of the our day to day exchanges. Lots of people walking around with a pain in the ass...that would explain it.
I've been toiling with this pain full on for the past week...previously it had been intermittent and much more manageable but, this week...oh boy!
I've been distracted from my day to day work and really just...consumed by it.
At first I ignored it and just thought that it would go away but I should have known better because since I turned 50 nothing in my body snaps back or sorts itself in the way it used to. I would say that this pain has become more intense as the week has gone on and I've just about run out of strategies for dealing with it. I've hit the point at which I'm ready to get someone with some expertise on the case so I've got the Google thing going...
My poor, long-suffering husband. If I'm not ranting about one thing it's another but this has been a bit different because it's really only today that I've felt that I wanted to 'fess up to what's going on. Call me a prude or any other kind of uptight that you like but I'm not really accustomed to having bum conversations...with anyone...and Rick already accepts and accommodates a great many of my physical...idiosyncracies...so I'm not in any great hurry to discuss this latest but really...it is just so freakin' SORE...and I am so...out of sorts...
Because of it that I felt that some explanation was due.
OK...so I've set the scene...and there is a point to this blog...
At 2pm this arvo I took 2 Panadol and went to BED...honestly, I felt so bad.
I was hoping that I might sleep for an hour and it magically resolve (it didn't). So I moaned and complained and described and hypothesised and cursed and paced and...you get the idea...I did go on about it...and I felt a bit better for that and also much better that Rick knew the extent of it and at the very least, I wasn't alone.
But I did start thinking about how it would be if I didn't have language...how on earth would I ever have been able to deal with this? How would I explain about the pain and where it was? How long would it take the people around me to work out what was going on? And, given where the pain was and all of the taboos we have about bums, would we ever get there? Without me acquiring a grubby reputation?
It's another one of those moments of epiphany for me...I thought I understood this...
Just like I thought I understood about what it meant for families to negotiate support in their homes...
The theory is a shadow...the reality comes at you in technicolour and stereophonic sound...
It's hard for everyone concerned...Rick just thought that I was cranky because I was too hot...and, since this is Australia, it's going to be hot for a long time! And you know, I'm cranky anyway...would anyone notice the difference? What would I have to do to help them see it?
I'm not making any judgements about what people do or don't do as they support a person who doesn't use words to speak. But I also know that they are among the most vulnerable and worst served within the system. I believe too that there are good people working in agencies, often doing their best in difficult circumstances.
But, I tell you something...if I had to put up with this for too much longer without being able to talk about it or having the wherewithall to get help then someone would get hurt...
I suppose I'm just asking people to consider that before they write someone off as a pain in the ass they might consider that their ass (or any other part of their anatomy) is in pain.
