Ugh. I sort of hate to admit that I’m a superstitious person because it goes against the logic and reasoning that I use to guide so much of my life, but also, I am a total kook about knocking on wood which I totally should have done when I posted my headache update last weekend. Because, this week, it would seem that in doing so, I jinxed the heck out of myself because not only have the headaches been back, they’ve been as bad as they ever were this spring.

Thursday night was the worst. After feeling the pressure and tension build throughout the afternoon, by evening I knew I was in complete hot mess mode. Still, I watched some AGT with my Bigs because we got hooked on it this summer and we’re still trying to work our way through episodes even though school is back in session. But by the time we paused the show and put a couple more kids to bed, I was just done and nothing was helping. Not a heating pad, not a shower, nothing. I finally gave up and crawled into bed just after 9PM, in so much pain that my stomach hurt.

Thankfully the next morning things were better, but there were more bad days than good ones in the last week which was rough physically. And I’ll be honest and tell you that when those bad days hit, the physical pain slides pretty quickly into being tough mentally, too. It’s hard not to fall into despair when my head goes sideways on me, especially when I’ve been doing ALL the things to help correct it and actually thought some of it was working. I mean, it really was better so why the sudden and severe setback?

Unfortunately, as has been the case this entire time, there’s no way to know. We’ve never been able to determine the actual cause of this shit show which thereby means we’ve never been able to target it with 100% confidence that we were doing the right things. And yes, I keep using “we” because this is not just a “me” effort but that of Ben and my family and the care providers that I’ve been working with for months now.

The takeaway? Chronic pain sucks. It’s awful to have to push through each day because what other choice is there but then, when you get a glimmer of “better” only to have that go away, too? That sucks even more because you start to think that life is always going to be this way and that’s a sad, hard, lonely place to be. It’s hard to tell people when you are hurting and then, when the pain does clear for a bit, it’s hard to get hopeful or excited because what if more bad days are lurking just around the corner?

Thankfully the weekend has been more so on the side of “good” (*knocks on wood* *knocks over a tree*) and because I’ve got that good, strong, and stubborn Scandinavian blood running through me, there is still some hope left that I am indeed on the right track and overall am making progress with my health. But if it seems like I’m reluctant or slow with the updates it is because this roller coaster just isn’t telling me when the ride is going to stop and I never really know from day-to-day where on that good v. bad scale I’m going to land. Plus my other takeaway from this week is, goodness graciousness – don’t jinx yourself!