health, Hysterectomy, Just me, Just me, Migraine

The wall.

2 Comments

It’s been nine months since the final surgery that removed my uterus and remaining ovary.  I have been getting more active, more energetic, better.  Sometimes better enough to forget that it’s only been nine months.  Often, better enough to forget that my doctor told me it would be, at minimum, a year before I felt completely better.

So I get busy. I work, I work out, I play with the kids, I see people, and the whole time I am thinking “Woo hoo! I am getting better!” I feel energetic and great!  Even with migraines I feel miles above where I used to be.

Then I run smack into the wall.  BAM!

Yesterday I hit the wall after I saw the doc for a nerve block for my migraines.  I got home, blearily handled the kiddos while I waited for their dad, and then went to lie down because I could not keep my eyes open.  I am not exaggerating.  I could not stay awake any longer.  I hit the bed and I slept for three and a half hours.  Then I ate something, went back to bed, and slept ten.  I am exhausted and distracted today, unable to focus for very long on much of consequence.  My energy level is super low.

This has happened before.  It’s like I have used up all my spoons, and have to recharge before I get any more.  It’s not unusual, in fact I should expect it, but I never do.  I did when I was super sick, when I had to spend all my energy just not screaming at the kids or Lee or crying all the time because I hurt too much to be a human being much less a wife and parent.  Now that I am much better I forget how much farther I have to go.  I get greedy and impatient with myself, eager to return to the levels of energy I had before all this madness started.  Eager to leave behind the woman who watched the world rush around her while she lived in a quiet little room, too hurt to participate.

Unfortunately, the wall has no pity.  It is relentless.  I run into it and there is no running past it, no getting around it, no breaking through.  All there is are days of sleep, rest, and the feeling that I can’t do anything.   The feeling that I am right back in that room.  The wall will not let me by until I have taken the space and time I need to recover.

So I dial it back.  I spend less energy.  I try to regroup and build myself back up.  I hope this time I will have more energy than last, that I will be that much closer to healed.

That this time I will finally get completely out of that room.

2 thoughts on “The wall.”

  1. Sarah Elizabeth Schantz – Sarah Elizabeth Schantz lives on the outskirts of Boulder, Colorado in an old farmhouse surrounded by open sky, century-old cottonwoods, screech owls and coyote. Her first novel, FIG, is coming out in 2015 from Simon & Schuster; she just finished the first draft of her second book, ROADSIDE ALTARS. A Pushcart Nominee, Schantz is the recipient of the following short fiction awards: First Place Winner of the Third Coast Fiction Prize (2011), The Fall Orlando Prize in Short Fiction hosted by A Room of Her Own (2012), Winner of the 4th Annual Flash Fiction Prize hosted by Monkey Puzzle Press (2012), and First Place Fiction Award hosted by the new feminist press, Saturday's Child. She has been short-listed for several other competitions hosted by journals such as Glimmer Train, New Letters, Zoetrope, Cream City Review, Hunger Mountain, Alligator Juniper, Nimrod Literary Journal and more. Her work can be found in many of the journals previously mentioned, as well as Midwestern Gothic, Bombay Gin, The Adirondack Review, The Los Angeles Review, and anthologies New Stories from the Midwest and Modern Grimmoire: A Contemporary Anthology of Fairy Tales, Fables & Folkore. Sarah literally grew up in a mystery bookstore, in a household where literature was worshiped instead of gods. As a witch, she believes in the power of metaphor. In 1998, she became the proud stepmother of a lovely stepdaughter, and in 2000 gave birth to her own daughter, Story, in a shotgun shack without running water on top of Rag Mountain in eastern Tennessee. When she isn't writing, she is making art. Sarah collects Lotus slippers, owl figures, porcelain dolls, antique lace (especially crochet) and wears Edwardian nightgowns while she sleeps and writes because both acts involve dreaming.
    Sarah Elizabeth Schantz says:

    I know healing is supposed to happen when we sleep, but I wish I didn’t get as tired as I do. Sometimes when my headaches come on, or entire body flare-ups, all I can do is sleep. For hours and hours. And I’ve found it’s the only way I will ever feel better. I just don’t want to sleep my life away.

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