2 My Homework this week....

My first lesson this week is :
Accept reality as it is here and now.


To be honest, I really don't know. I know my reality, but at the same time I flee my reality because I don't know how to accept that the life I knew is over.
And if I accept it I fell like I am giving up on the idea of getting a treatment that can improve my quality of life.
Do any of us accept the brutal honesty of where they really are her an now?
I am going to have to chew on this a little while longer..


My second lesson is:
How my mind affects my mood and my energy?

thats a easier one. I drag myself into a deeper mud bath, my skin loves it, so does my hair. But my mood is as shifting as summer thunders/rain near the equator.
When I am in pain, I am like a rapid dog, I can snap without warning. And afterwards I feel so guilty, and then I wallow in self pity..
I can see how my mind can screw me over. But I guess thats my reality. I don't know how to deal, so I do all the wrong things, say the worst, and feel guilt from here to India.
I need my energy to get me back to a creative place, I have always loved doing things with my hands and creativity. I love to paint, scrapbooks, chasing historical monuments and artifacts, and make-up and fashion..
I miss it, but cant seem to get fashion to work with me. The close I used to love, I cant where because of my painful lung scar, and I cant wear pants that has a tight fit because of the drugs I take. So now I have lost that part who loved dressing up for a new day.
I just wish for one day that I could feel like a princess. perfect hair, make-up and a smashing outfit.
Maybe thats the energy I should focus on..... getting back to the creative, historical buff that is Alexandra??

0 Can I be a Firework??

This songs really hit me right in the heart. I don't listen to a lot of music this days, it makes me to sad. But this one gives me the shills. It makes be belive that maybe there still is a part of me in here that can be someone I once dreamt of. maybe everything isn't lost.... So Thanks Katy Perry for that :)

0 Placebo...

I read an article in a Norwegian female magazine "Kamille", where they had looked into the research on why the placebo pill can be a painkiller etc.
Our thoughts have a direct impact on the chemistry of the body. Placebo Effect is thus very real.
Professor in psychology Magne Arve Flaten have researched the placebo effect for years, and he thinks we should call it anticipation effect. The anticipation are activating processes in our body.
researchers thinks the explanation is very closely related to stress.
If a person with severe pain are plagued with stress, fear and uncertainty, and that can increases the pain.
Similarly, a person who believes that he/she gets help with the pain, reduces the stress experience and perhaps less pain.
placebo effect can thus be explained by the fact we relax when we think we have a pain killing substance, allowing the body morphine to be excreted .
I know I relax more after I've taken ketogan, although it has not begun to work because I know that help is on the way.
Researchers have found out the reason the placebo helps is because you think it will, and our thoughts and feelings can affect our physical body.
If they could have made a sort of placebo pill that actually made the body its own morphine so that you're body will give you just the right amount of painkillers, would be an amazing breakthrough.
Trick you're body to handle the problem instead of putting a lot of pills in you're body that has serious side effects.
Think of all the things I could do again. I could drive, remember again (that what is my biggest personality trade, I know a little about everything, and I have a good memory, so I have been grieving over this lose).

I don't care what makes the pain go away, If a placebo could do that, bring it.
After only a few sessions with my psychologist I see clearer than ever how the mind and body work so closely together. I have always belived that you need to treat both, but this makes it even clearer.
Do you really care how a pill work, if it will relive pain ??
Placebo has become this stigmatizing word, but I think we should look into it.
Some studies show that patients have gotten a significant better health by placebo, although it should not have been possible without conventional medications. So I say that maybe we should change the name of the pill and view it as a positive medicine instead of "deceive" drug to see if you're one of those who stupidly got  deceived and got a huge medical effect of a placebo pill ..

0 Odynephobia,Agoraphobia............

I have finally started seeing a psychologist for pain management.
She really nails my worries and my problems. She says since I cant know when, how, or how strong the pain is that I have developed Odynephobia, (fear of pain) Agoraphobia because I don't manage places which I cant control. But where others are scared because of a panic attack, I am scared because I had esophagus spasms in that environment or mode of travel
She says I run from it, rather than face it, and that I can actually provoke the spasms..
She says that she cant take the pain away, but she can help me confront and accept it.

This is my reality, and I have to think in the present, not the past or the future. I have to come to terms with what is, and if I am in pain that thats ok. I shouldn't fight, give up or feel guilty, but accept it.
And the bad experiences I've had in the past should not shape what I do in the future, but rather teach me what I must do different so it wont happen, if possible.

This is going to be a long process, but I am glad that there might be a way for me to coexist with this disease, and take the driving seat, instead of being overrun by pain..
She wants me eventually to meet the pain instead of running from it. feel it, pick it apart, and perhaps  eventually the pain will not be so overwhelming, and can be experienced less painful.

It sounds really great and easy, but I have an idea that this is going to require hard work and many confrontations with myself I until now have avoided, but if it can give me a life I feel I can manage, it is worth it. As I said before, all treatments should be tested, not one stone should be left unturned, before I give in to the dark traveler..