Sep 22 \”It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure\” ~Sade

So, I thought about writing about my prolotherapy adventure yesterday, but I am pretty sure it would have gone something like this: 

Pain sucks. %%$$^*#$.  Let me take a break so I can go prolo puke…again.  Whine, whine, whine…WHINE.

I decided I would give it a day, and I am glad that I did.  I’m still not moving very well, and I’m still in quite a bit of pain, but what I have today that I did not have yesterday is perspective.  Sleep will do that for me.

Yesterday, my Dad and I took off for Mishawaka at 7.  On the way there I cut coupons, talked my Dad’s ear off, cleaned out my camera, cleaned out my purse, made phone calls, and made to-do lists.  One of the lists I made was all of the things I needed to do when I got home.  The last few times I have had prolo, my body has done very well, and when I have returned home, I dusted, did laundry, caught up on bills, and other housework that needed to be done.

I did not think that this time was going to be different. That’s what I get for assuming.

When I got to Dr. Cantieri’s office, I asked him if he thought we could go back to doing the ligament/tendon kind of prolo instead of the neural kind that I had last time.  I explained that I felt like I benefited more from the ligament/tendon kind since it gave me more stability, and therefore more pain relief.  I also explained that to pay for prolo and make the trip to Mishawaka bi-weekly was just not practical for us.

This is why I love Dr. Cantieri: He is honest. He is respectful. He acknowledges that I know my body the best of anyone.  And he LISTENS.

He totally agreed that doing the “regular” prolotherapy, because of my EDS, made the most sense.

As he examined my points of pain, it was very clear that the major areas he needed to focus on were my jaw, neck, and upper back.  He took to my body with his “magic marker” making it very colorful, and then he got to work with the oh, so fun needles.  At first things were going fine…until he got to my jaw.  Holy pain.

After a few injections into my jaw, I told Dr. Cantieri I was tasting blood.  After having me sit up and look around, he came to the conclusion that I must have bit down hard on my cheek during one of the injections.  I laid back down after the blood had pretty much stopped and he continued.   The last injections were in my jaw capsules (in my cheeks).  After he was finished, I started freaking out because I could not open my right eye all of the way.  Dr. Cantieri explained that some of the lidocaine must have hit my facial nerve and that it would wear off within an hour.  What a weird, crazy feeling.

When I was done and got up to get dressed, I realized that for whatever reason this round of prolo was no walk in the park…Okay, let’s be honest.  It was pretty brutal.

The ride back home was quiet.

The rest of the day was quiet.

Talking and eating were extremely difficult…and I LOVE talking and eating.

I spent the rest of the night sick and wondering what in the world I had done, and why was prolo kicking my behind so bad this time around?

And then there were those items on my to-do list. I had to accept pretty quickly that my body needed to recover more than my house needed to be dusted.

I ended up taking Tylenol and calling it a night early.  I’m glad I did because I woke up today with a little less discomfort, but a much bigger tolerance for the pain.

This morning I had to ask myself:

Am I waking up from a major surgery today? No.

Will I be able to teach and function Monday? Yes.

So that’s why I do it.

That’s the pleasure I get from the pain.

The following are three pictures Dr. Cantieri took for me.  I was not going to be able to get any pictures this time since my Dad is unable to watch me get the injections (he always has his nose in a magazine because he gets so squeamish).  However, Dr. C and I agreed that it was tradition so he snapped these for me.