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Fighting the Invisible Battles

“Imagine you are faced with an enemy you cannot defeat.” These are the opening words to a recent documentary I viewed about China. (Yes, the headache has been bad and for some reason I turn to ancient history because it makes a distraction for me and at the same time makes me very happy I live in the age of modern medicine.) However, these words define my life.

I can’t completely defeat the pain. The greatest and wisest physicians I know can’t make the pain completely go away. All we can do is stave it off enough so that I can function as normally as possible. The stimulator implanted above the occipital nerves, Botox injections every three months, along with some powerful pain medications and muscle relaxants with an occasional IV of Depakan can only hold it off. But I have to find a way to live with it and so I do.

I take the medications. I read. I walk, play, and curl up with Dora the GREAT Explorer, my service dog, who provides more solace than many medicines. I volunteer. I spoil my nephew and the neighborhood kids.

I can’t defeat the fainting, either. I want to. Every doctor and man of science I have seen about it has basically told me that I have to live with it. I have been told everything from “it is psychological and she is making it up, “to it is epilepsy, a heart problem, and a nerve problem.” There isn’t an answer.  Paperwork to see the first doctor I have seen in two years to address this problem is on my dining room table. But still. I have to find a way to live with it. I take the meds, I take Dora everywhere, and I live my life- because there is no other choice.

So this leaves me searching for answers and looking for the every changing “Middle way”. I am an Episcopalian and in that “middle way” I have found God and know that he will lead me. That he is really the one running the show here.

So sometimes I sue for peace. Sometimes I must use powerful medicines to fight the beast. But one day, I will see up close the golden cross I follow and glimpse in the distance and then I shall be free. But until that day comes, I shall fight.