Tags
birth control, christine miserandino, chronic pain, essure, essure problems, health, living with pain, spoon theory, spoons theory
If you haven’t read my first Essure Problems post, please start with me here. It’s not absolutely necessary, but will definitely help you through the series of posts. 🙂
There’s a lot about chronic pain that most people will never, ever understand. Though I hope I am on the mend and that this chronic pain will go away, it’s only a possibility. This Essure implant could have served as a catalyst for an autoimmune disorder that will forever impact my life.
I’ve tried explaining my pain, my feelings, my situation to others. It’s damn near impossible. You get stares when you wait on the elevator instead of taking the stairs. You get jokes made, my friends and doctors alike, about being “healthy” and “young” and living your life. You get disbelief, ignorance, and stupidity.
I stumbled upon the spoon theory which really helped me to understand how to explain my pain. The Spoon Theory was created by Christine Miserandino, an individual with lupus. The spoon theory basically explains that everyone starts out the day with x number of spoons, and they are forced to use them on daily tasks. An individual who lives with chronic pain starts out the day with many less spoons than his or her healthy counterpart. When your spoons are gone, they’re gone. You can borrow against the next day’s spoons, but you’re sure to pay the price. You can only do so much in a day, but someone who lives with chronic pain has to make the tough decisions to prioritize activities that are all important, just because they don’t have enough spoons to do them all.
There are a few images available to help describe the spoon theory. I apologize that they are not the best quality; for some reason, all of the images online are small and/or blurry. I am not quite techy enough to create you a pretty image, but these should definitely help you get the picture.
Every task, even a task that seems as simple as picking out the day’s outfit or checking your email, uses spoons. Some things only use one spoon; some things use multiple spoons. Most of these examples give a person with an autoimmune disorder and/or chronic pain somewhere from 12-15 spoons. When going grocery shopping takes 3-4 spoons, it begins to make sense as to why most of my nights are spent curled up on the couch, willing myself to stay awake until 8pm.
I explained in the first segment of my Essure Problems series (Post 1) that I made a tough decision to undergo a serious surgery, especially since the positive outcomes weren’t guaranteed. But, while I may spend a couple days or weeks down from surgery pain, I had to take that chance. I had to risk that I was essentially having a hysterectomy for nothing, just in case I was having the hysterectomy for everything. When you run out of spoons, you’ll do just about anything rational for the chance to have more.
Until next time.