It demands to be felt.

I spent some time last night reading through a few of my old posts. Recently, I’ve become incredibly bitter about my situation, and part of that bitterness is centered around my inability to write properly now. Writing has always been my way of dealing with things; before the painkiller addiction came a writing addiction, and up until recently it’s been all I know. Now… my brain just can’t process the words properly. I read every single comment, but the energy it takes to consider and type out a reply just isn’t there.

Tomorrow evening, my mother is taking me to see my GP. I asked her to come with me after last week’s disastrous appointment, so I have a buffer against the almost-inevitable meltdown. The point has come where I’m too distressed by the pain in my foot and ankle (a hot, burning, stabbing, pulling feeling, demanding my attention 24/7) to keep my emotions in check, and honestly, I don’t think I care anymore. I’ve become so used to crying in public – something which used to mortify me – that I’m almost blasé about it now.

Over recent months, my health has gone very downhill. I’ve become almost totally unable to walk unaided, and only leave the flat once a week or so. After a short walk (sometimes only ten minutes), I’m left in crippling agony for days on end. I’ve had to stop taking the tramadol because it made me feel so sick, and although I’ve managed to find a small number of prescription-strength co-codamol which we discovered in the bedroom when we moved in, the relief only lasts an hour or so before surging back into my heel, ankle, calf and toes. It’s something I can’t describe; imagine the worst pain you’ve ever been in, then magnify it by ten. Every single step is like climbing a mountain. I have to brace myself each time my foot touches the floor.

My mother says I have to go through this; I have to be bitter and angry and resentful, so I fight back. I admit, I have started to consider the possibility of this pain not being forever (for months, I’ve believed that this will be my life until I die), even if it’s unlikely. After all, everything I’ve read and the words of both an orthopedic surgeon and a rheumatologist back that belief up. Still, there’s a chance. I want to believe in that chance, so much.

Two years is a long, long time to be in constant, burning pain, and my mother says she will speak for me at tomorrow’s appointment. I don’t think I can make sense of this anymore, and everything I say comes out wrong. A while ago, I wrote about how I have difficulty admitting weakness to those in authority. Ever since, I’ve tried to remedy that but the problem is too deeply ingrained to fix overnight, or even in six months. So I need an advocate. My mother and may have had many, many conflicts and we may have a tainted history, but she knows me better than anyone else, and she’s seen me falling apart over the recent weeks and months of increasing pain.

She was supposed to visit today, but I sent her a text saying it wasn’t worth it because I’d been up all night. I did get to bed at a reasonable time after hours and hours alternating ice water and heat on my leg, but woke at 2am. S was awake, and asking if I was alright. The pain screamed through the back of my ankle and heel, and apparently I’d been crying out in my sleep. Clearly, I wasn’t going to get back to sleep so I kissed S, waved off his offers of doing something to help (really, nothing can help) and told him to go back to sleep. I set up camp on the sofa with a cup of tea and a joint, raising my leg as high as possible with a construction of pillows, cushions and my old duvet. I’ve become incredibly attached to that duvet, as I always do when I’m struggling.

I watched iPlayer all night, spacing out doses of co-codamol to avoid taking too much. I’ve learned too many hard lessons regarding that. It’s difficult, being in the living room while S is asleep in bed. I miss him terribly. We’ve always slept very closely, waking up most mornings wrapped around each other in all sorts of bizzare contortions, so to be alone on the cold sofa is pretty depressing. It’s happening more and more often now, usually because I can’t make it to the bedroom. It’s only a short distance through the hallway and there are no stairs, but it’s incredibly difficult trying pull myself along the walls and balance on one (also painful) foot to avoid making the pain worse. So I bed down on the sofa, hoping S won’t see it as a slight. I’ve explained the reasons to him, but I know I’d be devastated if S didn’t seem to want to sleep with me. I just pray he’ll never take it personally, because I need him right now, more than ever.

The pain has lessened for now. I took a painkiller an hour ago, and I’ve been smoking dope all night to try and calm the pulling feeling in my calf. It works, but it takes a lot. I can’t help thinking that I shouldn’t have to spend money on illegal drugs when there’s a health service out there… but what else can I do? I no longer enjoy being stoned. I don’t like the tightness in my chest from smoking so much, or the effects on my memory. Without it though, I’d end up cutting my own leg off.

I told my mother that I wouldn’t be upset if I somehow lost my leg in an accident. How awful is that? I hate myself for thinking that way; it’s so unlike me, and it’s a horrible thing to think of. I just… I’ve never hated a limb before. I’ve grown to utterly loathe it. I don’t recognise my own foot anymore. I can’t really identify it as mine anymore. It’s just a painful, hateful alien creature. A punishment, although I don’t quite know for what.

Everywhere I look, people are dealing with pain in rational, sensible ways. Then there’s me. Why am I taking it all so badly?