Backwards, but progress?

 Turns out that that ability to keep on trying to reframe issues is still working for me, and it feels damn good.  For close to a decade now, marijuana has been my go to tool for dealing with rampant pain and nausea - nothing else has worked as well, as fast, or as reliably.  I grew up in the age of DARE, though, and the message that drugs are ultimately bad and that even experimenting with them is a horribly weak and sinful thing has been etched into my brain.  On top of that, my first wife passed away from a methodone overdose, which just locked that attitude in even further.  So there's been a whole truckload of guilt, each and every time I address my pain.  Swapping over to THC concentrate and a vaporizer a few years ago dimmed some of my concern, as at least the stuff that was getting in me was considerably more pure and I can acheive a much finer level of control in balancing my symptoms with the inherent drug fog, but it sure didn't eliminate the guilt.  My usage continually crept upwards as my body adjusted to the input, and had been up to a gram of 93% pure THC every day or two.  The only other bit that's really made a dent is going in for Botox every 3 months; trading 36 little bee stings over the surface of my head and shoulders and a guaranteed horrible day when getting injections for cutting the overall pain by about 40%.  Very worthwhile, but quite hard to take, and not nearly enough on it's own.

When I went into the ward, I ended up quitting both THC and caffiene cold turkey for the duration.  I knew it was coming, but it was something that was completely unfathomable for a very long time, as the last two times I've had to resort to checking myself in, I've been completely unable to catch up with my symptoms and the staff have been utterly unsympathetic and unhelpful (This is absolutely par for the course for the VA).  Turns out that Kaiser applies a decent level of common sense, for a change, and other than a few issues with meds being locked into a schedule rather than as needed for the first day or so, they were really supportive of me in trying to stay on top of things.  Funny thing, it's never been that over the counter drugs don't help, it's been that taking enough of them to make a difference regularly would just absolutely disolve my liver.  I've actually been a bit overly paranoid about that; only ever allowing myself 3 doses of anti-inflamatory per week, and nearly always skipping even that.  I ended up taking hefty dose of ibuprofen and decongestant every six hours for the entire stay, which brought things into a bearable range, by the slimmest of margins.  Didn't need any kind of alarm, as my body made damn sure I was awake when the last dose started fading.  So, workable, but not something I could anticipate being able to continue for any length of time.

I honestly had a really hard time even listening to the everyone that told me I needed to reduce or eliminate my usage of marijuana - I was legitimately indignant that anyone would even try to weigh in on my pain, as no one else has had to deal with it.  In reflecting on things now, I've come to realize that an incredible portion of what was driving my decisions was absolute terror at the idea of getting into pain and not being able to catch back up with it.  Fortunately, my wife discovered a minor miracle while I was gone, that not only helped her, but worked wonderfully for me as well.  While my primary issue is migraine headache, I have some version of allergy or somesuch that ends up causing massive congestion during spring and fall, which turns up the migraine 1000%.  Social media brought this weird eye massager thingy to our attention, and I've got to say, it works wonderfully, and nearly immediately.  (https://www.amazon.com/RENPHO-Massager-Compression-Bluetooth-Rechargeable/dp/B07SM61FCT)

To quote my original response to my wife after trying it (cause I can): "Oh my god; that felt so damn good.  Like the difference in pain is great enough that it's actually largely processing as pleasure, mostly.  At least 2-3 points on my pain scale, which I tend to view as being exponential in nature, like the Richter earthquake scale.  Doesn't seem to be holding quite as well as I'd like, but seems to mechanically do exactly what I need to to to redistribute pressure for the duration.  Please send me a link for it so that I can get one of my own (we both deserve immediate access to the relief this has on tap, and having a spare to draw on in crisis is going to count for a lot.)  This is going to be unbelievably valuable as an effective intervention that I can call on for instant feedback in place of THC as the front line, especially while other methods are kicking in."

It's actually a bit unreal to finally have another major tool on tap that helps so much.  I'm back to being able to use goalposting ("Ok, lets try and hold out until the next hour before we give in and have another dose") successfully again, in that I'm able to hold out for those arbitrary goals, and even end up passing them without really noticing, occasionally.

The other factor that's gotten my thinker going is that I have had to resort to marijuana a couple of times since I've gotten back, and I have to admit, now that my sensitivity is back up, I really quite like being high.  So, it's become time to change my relationship with marijuana.  When I first started using it, I made sure, almost religiously, to only ever use it to balance out discomfort and pain, never recreationally.  At this point, it's not my first line of defense, in fact it's become a relatively rare desperation move, which should mean my tollerance stays nice and low, and that using it can be an occasional thing to just relax and enjoy.  It feels utterly backasswards to balance things in my brain like this, but it makes sense in a rather critical way, such that sticking to the decision still seems right even when I'm lost in pain.  Just being able to start rewiring my reflexes to reach for the mask or some ginger chews from Trader Joes (https://www.amazon.com/Ginger-People-Original-Chews-1-lb/dp/B005GXQ244/ref=pd_lpo_1?pd_rd_i=B005GXQ244&psc=1) has done an incredible amount for my self esteem already, as I'm not constantly fighting those old DARE messages while just trying to make it through the day.

So, I guess if sinus congestion plays into your pain at all, do yourself a favor and order one of these silly masks to give it a whirl.  $60 is vanishingly little as a cost for increasing self-control and comfort.