Okay, I know I'm sappy (and drunker than I ought to be at this time of night) but I keep hearing dog tags in the hallway and missing my girl.

(Um, to clarify, those are actual dog tags clanging as neighbor dogs go in and out for walks - I'm not that far gone that I'm imagining them. Though after talking about my mom, and with the thing with my sis this weekend - eh, it's making me weepy, so I guess I'm far enough. I want my girl back.)

But fuck me, it sucks.

I've blathered on quite a bit about pain, but Cashmere has just summed it up quite tidily.

That was until I developed the herniated disc with the lovely chronic back pain. It's one thing to know there's a finish line to the pain. It's another to look down the road and not know if there is an end to it.

Oh yes, that exactly. I've always been kind of a stoic - I have a very high tolerance (judging from my dentist's reaction, if nothing else), I can handle sharp, hard pain. The ongoing, no end in sight thing, no matter how even if it's not as intense (or god forbid, if it is)? I never got that before, and it's as close a definition of hell as I can get.

I don't tell you so, ita, but I think about you, and worry about you every single day. Sometimes I'm furious that there's nothing that can be done, like, where is Dr. House with the magical cure in act four? Mostly I just worry.

ita, I get very bad headaches from time to time. I have fibromyalgia, so chronic pain is a constant. New pains tend to be acute, even when they are minor. But, DAMN girl! I am baffled and in awe of the fact that you can function at all with your migraines! You must be superwoman!

I'm not superwoman so much as a few steps away from being a wreck. And sometimes when no one's looking, I let myself be just that--a wreck.

I do most of what has to be done, and mostly I do it okay. This has to stop sometime, because there's a basic erosion I don't know how to shore up. But for now I can work around it.

Allyson, I can't tell you not to worry, and I don't know what I could say that would reassure you short of "It doesn't hurt." I will be very glad to tell you that when it is the case. But don't let it bring you down, or anything. A nice casual worry, over a hot drink or something--that works.

It kind of greys out all the color from your life, you know?

I, too, have fibromyalgia. I used to have migraines about as often as ita does now, but fortunately medication keeps about 90% from happening any more. I am constantly amazed by the amount of pain ita and Cashmere and others here endure, while manageing to make pleasant and interesting conversation and carry on interesting and fulfilling lives. I don't think I'm that witty even when I don't have a migraine.

Pain is kind of boggling. It sucks, but without it we die. We're more and more advanced with painkillers, but people and their doctors are afraid to use them. And even with the advances, they still can't relieve ita's migraines or Cashmere's back or brenda's mom. Indeed, it sucks.

Happy birthday, Jesse and Theodosia!

Whenever I think about migraine sufferers like ita or my mom (prior to menopause, which helped tremendously), I'm very thankful that my migraines are mostly baby ones that respond to over-the-counter drugs and rarely last more than a day. The idea that the worst headache I've ever had would be a mild one to folks who suffer them much more frequently is appalling.

Gerald Ford died and I am sputtering that the obit I read called it the Betty Ford Clinic instead of Center. I feel I am taking the wrong things from this news.