Just a few thoughts that occurred to me during the preceding few days. I'm a writer (not by profession... I wish!) and I love words, language, the play of language, the tricks of language. Irony is a good old writerly trick that right now is grabbing me by the throat and twisting pretty hard. Here is a short list of ironies and dilemmas I have noticed lately:
I have a disease which makes it impossible or intensely painful to smile/laugh - they put me on meds that can make you depressed.
I have another disease, cluster headache (as painful as TN) which I can get pain relief for by breathing oxygen through a mask - cold oxygen through a plastic mask touching my face triggers my TN
Lying down for a nap in the daytime is pretty good for TN - lying down for a nap in the daytime triggers CH
A news report the other day was waffling on about recent research that demonstrated its not being happy that makes us smile but smiling that makes us happy (as if we didn't know.) - I can't smile.
I can't smile - I cant turn my sense of humour off.
Everyone says "keep smiling", trying to help - I can't smile.
And I'm going to stop here because my meds make me forgetful and I can't remember what else I was going to say.
Later... oh, yeh, I remember. The biggest irony. Work is totally beyond me (I'm a primary school teacher). I can't go for a walk, or do my garden, or my mosaics, or singing, or go for a swim, or do yoga. I cant finish my kitchen reno. I cant do anything much physical. That's ok, I think, i'll do some writing, reading, Sudoku, pootle around on facebook, join a support forum for TN. Yup. Only you need to read to do all those things. And I need to wear reading glasses. And wearing glasses at the moment triggers an attack. Fine, I'm a resourceful girl. I'll just do everything on computer and turn the font size high.
Only moving my eyes from side to side triggers an attack.
(Is that normal?)
Looks like its picture books for a while.