Can you see?

If you had seen me at 2.45, you would have done.

My poor colleague did. We were mid-conversation and I suddenly emitted something that was a cross between a yelp or a scream, then tears, from nowhere. The same place that the excruciating pain came from.

In all of this time, there are very few people who have seen what it does to me when it is extreme. My friends have seen the chronic side, not the acute. This, I think, must be worrying to observe. I know that my nearest and dearest understand but know that there is nothing they can do. There must be a frustration to this situation for them too, as I know that they would suffer for me if they could. I know that they know that there are no words that they can say that makes it any easier to bear.

I know also that it could be worse and so then I feel bad for complaining about it.

This is what I struggle with. There is often a consistent nature to this so far unseen thing that is troubling (?!!) me, but then there are times where it is brutal, forceful, utterly crippling and it comes without warning, no build up...it sneaks up on me, unseen, unheard and then

BAM

I am done for.

I cannot describe it adequately. I guess it would be a stabbing pain. I don't know what it feels like to be stabbed, but I imagine it is excruciating, burning, searing, twisting agony. So yes, it would be a stabbing pain. It last for a couple of minutes. It comes and goes, no pattern to it, no rhyme or reason, nothing that triggers it that I can figure out.

It leaves me stunned, incapacitated for those few minutes. I cannot talk, it is difficult to breathe, because panic grips me.

Then finally, when it passes, I am drained. To the point of exhaustion.

I apologise that you keep hearing of this. All I can say is that you don't have to read it. I have no choice about whether I live with it currently. Even knowing I have a date for my next hospital appointment is little comfort, as I know that it will be a further few weeks after that before the exploratory stuff is done.


I am broken right now. I want to be fixed.