THE FAMOUS QUESTION

The Famous Question

by Chris Vartorella on Saturday, May 21, 2011 at 1:08pm

The famous question is…
   What do you do all day?  How do I tell people that I do something and then lay down, because my body hurts so bad and pushing it makes it worse.  I guess I just did.  I drove to a friend’s house a few weeks ago… She looked at me and asked what was wrong… I said, “Nothing.  I straightened up my apt..”  I must have looked awful.  That was it.  I put things away and did some dishes and I went a little too far.  And once I reach “that point of no return”, as I like to call it, I have to stop and rest.  When it’s very bad, I have to sleep off the pain.  Like a hangover.  Sometimes it comes with no rhyme or reason.  I call that, “my coffee pain.”  I wake up, feeling fine..then it starts…. After that cup of herbal tea or a cup of coffee.  I have had so much advice on what I need to do, that it is overwhelming. 
These are the things that help the pain.

1. Shutting my mouth… I don’t know why.. that helps sometimes.
2. Just the opposite.  Laughing with friends.  My friend Barbara is so funny, that she makes the darkest times funny.
3. Massage
4. Bikram yoga.  I do notice something shifts with Bikram… more than other exercises or other yogas. And I have done many.. including years of water therapy and swimming.
5. Writing down my feelings… this somehow gets my feelings out and I don't seem to hold them in my body.
6. Helping someone else … I forget my stuff sometimes if I just send a kind card to someone or extend a favor to a stranger.
7. Sex.     Need I say more?
8. A good cry… ya… this helps.. If I let myself feel really sorry for me without dumping on anyone, I feel better when it is over.
9. Stop bitching about it.  I was a good girl for two years after I broke my back and didn’t complain.  Then gradually… over the years I complained too much.  Then my friends told me to shut up already.  I am in between.. I bitch, catch myself, and then shut up.
10. Don’t compare yourself to anyone.. It will kill you. 
11. Don’t explain yourself to anyone.  Friends don’t need it and enemies don’t deserve it.
12. Find a doctor that “gets you” This took me several years of searching before I found a doctor I liked.
13. Finally.  Count your blessings.. There is a gift in everything if you take the time to look.  Even physical pain.  You are more compassionate as a result and you take less for granted.  You find out who your real friends are. This might sound like bullshit...and it IS!!!!! WHO THE FUCK WOULD WANT THIS SHIT!!!?  WHAT ASSHOLE IN HER RIGHT MIND WOULD SAY, "COUNT YOUR FUCKING BLESSINGS!!!!" WHEN SHE'S TOO EXHAUSTED TO GET OFF THE FUCKING COUCH!!!

A guy in group therapy a few weeks ago asked me how I broke my back and about the paralysis, etc.  I said that I was glad that it happened, and he said, "Fuck you."  
Nice.