Well, the holiday is over and life is settling back into a normal pattern of working. Already it seems that the holiday is in the distant past and soon it will seem like ages since our big adventure. We have such happy memories though and it has been nice to settle back into work and share some of those memories and experiences with my workmates.
Today I met with my boss and we discussed a few things relating to work. She stated that she was surprised that I had come back to work to do my normal hours as she had thought I would be too jetlagged. I told her that I actually don’t feel too jetlagged at all, my primary problem is with my injured right knee. That is the thing that will tire me out and perhaps make it difficult for me to work, as I spend a lot of time on my feet during the day. Perhaps I am not too jetlagged because my body is accustomed to not sleeping well and getting up at 3.00am on a regular basis to have a banana – they apparently help you sleep – and read a book for a while. Maybe because of this, it doesn’t take me as long to adjust to the loss of sleep because of travelling?
I have had a locum covering my work while I have been away and we had a bit of a chat today about my Parkinson’s and my other various maladies. She shared a few of her health challenges too, one of which causes her to have constant pain, just as my knee does for me. We talked about how we manage our pain. Not just about taking painkillers, but about how we mentally cope with a significant amount of pain. I told her about how difficult I find it when a physiotherapist or doctor asks me to rank my pain on a scale of 1-10. I usually find myself apologising to whoever is asking the question and explaining that I don’t mean to be difficult, but because the pain is constant, that I basically push the pain to the back of my mind and don’t attend to it fully. It therefore makes it difficult to rate, because I have deliberately not focussed on how painful it is! I have found that if I focus too much on the pain on a daily basis, that my life can become all about that pain. If I can acknowledge that I have pain and then move on – perhaps with the aid of painkillers – without dwelling on it, it is much easier. My husband often asks me if I have taken any painkillers and I often forget to do so. Again, because I have acknowledged the pain and then pushed it to the back of my conscious mind it often doesn’t occur to me to take anything! I suppose that is hard to understand for someone who doesn’t have regular significant pain issues.
I find that the Australian and New Zealand Parkinson’s Facebook page that I am a member of is a good space to share thoughts such as these as people often comment about similar experiences. In sharing those experiences we can feel less alone and know that others understand what we are going through. We also share strategies for the various challenges of Parkinson’s.
I think perhaps it is my training as a Social Worker that helps me a lot in managing this condition and sharing with others how it affects me. Just as I do in my clinical work, in talking through what I am thinking or feeling it helps me to gain clarity and plan for what to do next in difficult situations.
It is important I think to have a space to share with people who understand through their own experiences and in doing so expand our support network.
My journey with Parkinsons 