Pain

Over these past 2 months, I've become very intimate with pain, both emotional and physical. I've talked about the emotional pain a lot already here on this blog, so it's time to purge, figuratively (and I wish, literally) physical pain.

Of course, it started with labor and birth. But while intense, I find that to be an extremely satisfying kind of pain.

Then the milk came in. Not at all a satisfying kind of pain, not without a baby to nurse.

Next, I had a mole removed. This mole was on the skin just below my breasts, and above my belly, so that while really pregnant that skin would come together and sweat and annoy the heck out of this raised mole. It got to the point where there was a heat rash, it would sweat, dry up, crack and bleed, and was irritated almost constantly. I took to wearing a band-aid over it to stop that whole cycle. After losing the baby I decided that mole was hitting the highway before my next pregnancy. So I went in and had it removed. Big, long needle went in, and that was one heck of a stinging 20 seconds. Then no pain, but a weird sawing pressure as the mole was cut off. Done, thank you.

Then, a cavity filled. Luckily the numbing shot was far less painful than the one for the mole and the whole thing lasted about 10 minutes. Still, not the most pleasant experience. Especially when combined with a dentist, who, although he is very nice and sweet, reminds me WAY too much of an ex-boyfriend including hair, skin, eye color and worst of all, just the way he smells. Not in terms of b.o., but everyone has a distinctive smell, you know? And they have the same one. Far too weird. I am always happy to leave.

Then came my tattoo. Which I was so happy to get. But man, that did hurt. My previous tattoos have been pretty small and/or just lines, but getting a tattoo in which color has to be filled in on a large area? This is where labor breathing sometimes comes in handy :)

This past week has brought the worst pain. After flying home from NYC, my ear complained. LOUDLY. Apparently a plugged ear canal from old wax + pressure change on a plane flight = not good. Even after dissolving the wax I was left with an ear drum in the wrong place that when moved back into place, maybe tore a little and created a hole in the bottom. This, apparently, was good since, with the pressure an enormous amount of fluid built up behind my eardrum that made my ear stick out so far I could have used it for hitchhiking, allowed all that fluid a place to drain out. So for 3 days not only did I have incredible pain from all this pressure and this hole, but I also had stuff draining out of my ear.

And pain, let me tell you about the pain. It was definitely kill-me-now pain. Curl up into a ball and cry type of pain. So much pain that when I got my hands on some vicodin, I happily and in somewhat of a panic popped TWO of those bad little pills into my mouth. Talk about being high!
Thankfully, the worst is over but I am continuing a love affair with ibuprofen. I'm hoping it will end soon.

(And if this post is somewhat incoherent and rambling, I blame the pain.)