Time is Slipping

[Poppygail]

I’ve known for some time, and have written about it several times in posts to this site, that my sense of time was faltering badly. But a couple of incidents lately have really brought home just how broken this sense truly is.

The first came a few days ago when we took a short trip to the home health store to pick up some BiPAP supplies, a 10-15 minute trip, depending on traffic. Well, n this day, it seemed we had to stop for every traffic light, the volume of traffic was ridiculous, and we just weren’t making very good progress. About half way to our destination I started to panic. As far as I was concerned, I could not remember not being in the van that day. I felt as though we had been traveling for hours on end without break. It seemed as though we were destined to forever live in that vehicle, never again to stop, never to get out and stretch our legs, never to make it home to the relative safety of my recliner. I realize now just how unreasonable those fears where but at the time I was almost paralyzed with fight or flight instincts. I felt as though time had stopped and I was doomed forever to that traveling nightmare , I had to get out of there. Thankfully, just as the worst panic set in, we arrived at the home health store and all was good again. Funny how thoughts such as these can so easily upend your world.

The other incident occurred shortly after my “forever trip”. It involved my appetite, or lack thereof, as I’ve written about before. I had forced myself to eat part of a meal in an effort to curb my ongoing weight loss and made myself so nauseous I could barely lift my head. Again, I started to panic. It seemed to me I had been “sick” my entire life and I could see no possible future when I would not be sick as a horse, so to speak. I was convinced this nausea was to be my eternal fate, I could see no way out. Luckily for me, the nausea passed in ~15 minutes and I was back to my normal grumpy self. The feelings of dread and certain knowledge that I would never know the joy of not being nauseous again were long a thing of the past and I was left to marvel at the depths to which my sense of time had sunk.

It’s funny how easily life changes slip up on you and the absolutely astounding realization of just how quickly they’ve occurred. Your life, and that of those who love you, is never to be the same.

Hope you guys have an awesome day!

Randy

[jeffcobb Ambassador]

Randy; This is something I have been trying to explain to people for a very long time; the memory slips combined with illness or chronic pain are almost a hell unto themselves. Not only do you ever remember not feeling this bad before, from your POV this pain/illness/etc feels like it has gone on as long as you can remember...and when the pain is bad enough, it cripples your ability to think or use perspective on things so where a normal can put the pain in perspective and realizes that it only hurts now and soon it will be gone, the demented mind cannot fathom that so to us, the pain can feel like it will go on forever.

I had ONE doctor understand this but that is only one...

[Poppygail Ambassador in reply to jeffcobb]

The pain comparison is a good one. It was illustrated this morning when I slammed 3 of my fingers in the storm door. The pain only actually lasted several minutes but, to me, that time was an eternity that I didn’t think I could ever escape.