"The fair is in Puyallup..."

That was the saying of a great couples counselor my mother and I went to in Seattle. What he was implying was that this is an unjust world, and the only fair you'll see is the County Fair. I bring this up because I've already noticed the beginnings of survivors guilt in me.

I'd gotten used to the idea of being unlucky. I had to. That was reality for a while. I couldn't allow myself to hope. It made the despair worse. It shattered my faith in the God of my youth. And no, that hasn't been restored because the truth is millions suffer around the world every day still. Billions have died throughout the ages waiting for their cure. Some young, some old. Of every color imaginable. Disease is completely unbiased. Oh, sure there are tendencies... But there are also plenty of us Medical Unicorns too.

The fair is in Puyallup. My faith is in Time. And that faith, though agonizingly difficult at times---yes, I've been suicidal... had to tell my husband to hide the guns once---my faith in time has paid off. Sometimes things got worse, but the wheel turns for everyone, high and low born alike. We all have moments of joy. We all have moments of despair. We all have dreams. And no one has ever gotten *everything* they wanted (we were all kids once). No one gets through life unscathed. No one is immortal. Hearts break.

But they heal too.

I'm never going to be the same Pam that I was. There's no goin' back after something like this. But it hasn't been all bad. As a gamer geek, I used to grumble that the GM (God) was only letting me spend experience points (my time & energy) on Wisdom and non one Constitution (health). That is to say, I've grown incredibly wise in a short amount of time, but my body has suffered tremendously for it.

This path is not the way!!! If you can get there more comfortably, I sure as hell advise it. It's still gonna take me years to recover from the psychological damage.

I may choose to do a Shoah (Jewish tradition of testimony by survivors of tragedy) on a more broad scale, once. Otherwise I'm gonna stick to this and live a quite life. I have a chance to close the door on this. I have no qualms doing that. I can turn my back on it. Move forward again.

I don't feel trapped anymore. I can't dance like I want to yet, but I can feel in my soul that it's possible again. I've got a *future* to consider, and that's a weird feeling. It's new.

I have the treatment to go through, and recovery from that. I'll still have to play things by ear for a few years yet. And thank goodness because I have no idea what to do with myself! But I get to think about it again. I wouldn't before because it hurt too much. I knew my wants were just coming out as what I lost. I couldn't conceive of what it would be like on the other side. And I was absolutely right not to guess!

I made the mistake before of thinking I knew what chronic pain was. I had no idea. I'm going to brag for just one tinsy second... I have empirical proof as to the insane level of my migraines. I was in a scientific study for the Occipital Nerve Stimulator. Everyone in the study (according to my doctors) used the device between 4 and 8. That's milliamps of current applied directly to the nerves. I was the only one in the study who used the device at 20. My migraines would go past that. They gave me an extra charging device because I'd drain the batteries so fast.

And still, there was one time I had to back on narcotics. It was during a hideous wind storm in Seattle. I'd run my device full blast for a week. But my muscles started seizing until one morning I woke up vomiting and I couldn't stop. During a small window I put in a call to my doctor and she rushed a prescription. I had an authorized friend get the script to the pharmacy and the medication to me. I meanwhile relaxed in a hot shower, in god-awful pain, but no longer vomiting. (At that time I ran my medications on a night schedule for this very problem. It was more regular than it was safe to think I could stomach pills in the morning. That changed with the addition of medical marijuana last year.) So yes, I can safely say my pain was pretty epic. I won't say it's the worst, because I haven't yet passed out from pain, but I've certainly been unable to pass out due to pain. I think Hyperbole and a Half would put that somewhere around "I am actively being mauled by a bear." Only the bear was my own immune system attacking my brain. Yeehaw!

I don't know about you, but I sure as $#!+ want someone to shoot the bear. That's not drug seeking. That's pain avoiding. But from the outside, when no one else can see the bear, it looks exactly the same. *sad sigh*

It's not fair that I got this disease. It's not fair that I have a chance to get rid of it either. And I have NO IDEA what I'm going to do with this second chance. Lol

A quiet life of simple blessings sounds DELICIOUS.