Beginning anew

can I have a do-over? I want to pretend this whole week hasn't happened and start fresh. Yesterday, I caved and went back to my doctor. The migraine hadn't released its grip, and I was ready to beg for stronger pain relief. I just showed up within minutes of their opening, and said I don't care how long I have to wait, just squeeze me in somehow.

The office was already packed, but they were angels. They tucked me into their smallest examining room and turned off the lights until someone could see me. An ambulance had to come and pick up one of their other patients while I was there. One of their regular staff was out sick, and one of the other office assistants was working with her arm in a sling. Instead of packing me off to the ER, which would have cost three or four times the cost of an office visit, they still made time for me when it was a real challenge to them. I have to go to this nurse practitioner staffed clinic according to my insurance. I wasn't thrilled about that when I first started going there (I wanted a doctor, not a nurse), but I have never had such attentive and truly caring medical care in my life. It's so easy to be cynical about the medical professions today, and I just feel truly blessed to have this kind of care. Anyway, they sent me home after a huge and burning shot in my fanny and scheduling an MRI. A migraine that lasts this long just isn't normal for me.

The drugs sent me off to some sleeping world most of yesterday, one populated with strange and bizarre dreams that would wake me up for brief moments at a time. I'm still wondering why Susannah's nightmare images in The Prince of Tides were in my head. I distinctly remember having a conversation with a doberman hanging from a New York light post, and that is one of the hallucinations so vividly described by Conroy in his book. It's been months since I read that last, but the drugs pulled that from the recesses of my brain. I guess it's better to have literary nightmares than ones from my own life though.

I've got enough to worry about, and today, I'm just wracked with guilt. I feel like I'm letting everybody in my life down now. The womanchild has made her feelings on that matter abundantly clear. The husband, though he has little ground to stand on when it comes to making me feel guilty, is also doing his best to pull that from me. I know how crazy work is now, and I know that I'm truly needed there. My manager is juggling her job and mine with having her mother in an out of town hospital ICU days after a seven hour surgery for oral cancer. She's splitting her days between our office and the hospital. My manager is also one of my closest friends, so this is personal as well as professional. I know she needs my help and support now, and I've both wanted and promised to give it. My mother-in-law, who has been one of my biggest supporters and allies over the last few months, had knee surgery just days ago. She's back on her feet according to doctor's orders, but I know first hand the challenges she's facing, and I want to be able to help her as well. I've got personal business that has gone unattended, and I'm expecting grief from that to fall on my head any time now. Though the migraine has finally been conquered, I'm still seriously woozy from yesterday's medication and know that today will be wasted as well.

I've written and talked so much about balance in my life, and today I know I'm dancing on the tightrope. It would be all too easy to fall into a pity party rich with guilt that accomplishes nothing. I know that I have to take care of myself, and that some of my limitations now are beyond my control. Feeling guilty about them would truly be a sin of pride, placing my weaknesses beyond the realm of God's grace. That's an easy trap for me to fall into. I also know that obligations and responsibilities have been dropped that shouldn't have been, maybe not in the last few days that have had me so ill, but recently. Part of me is dying to rush to pick them up again, and part of me fears how much more complicated they will be when I do.

All of this is thrown into high contrast by the backdrop of Lent. This is supposed to be a time of repentance, contemplation and preparation, but right now, it would be terribly easy to let even that high and noble motivation become twisted and perverted.

Yes, I really want a do-over. I know that I could mess it up again, but can I start fresh? Please.

migraines, painkillers, guilt, Lent