If pain is invisible, how do people around you know you are in pain?
Is it mearly the words spoken of the pain?
Or if there are visible signs, I.E a bruise, a broken limb or blood does it become automatically assumed that the person is in pain?
What happens when the pain is not visible in such a way to the human eye?
The pain is inside, while outside you look painfree?
Do people understand and see the invisible pain as real as they would blood....or do they infact feel more sympathy for this invisible pain as they have only their imagination to guide them?
For 2 days i have been in pain,
For 2 days i have been in bed,
For 2 days i have cried.
My lungs simply feel like they are not functioning. My diaphragm feels bruised and swollen, parts of my lungs are sticking together restricting air flow, it hurts to breathe in, to breath out, to talk, to cough, to sneeze, to laugh!
'One pain is lessened by another's anguish' - William Shakespeare
If Anguish is a sense of pain how do we feel it?
I felt it yesterday when my mum and sister refused to let me sit in bed any longer, they understood my pain but knew i needed fresh air so helped me downstairs to sit in the garden to get some sun on my face.
Through the tears of my physical pain i could see my sisters tears of mental pain.
She could see pain through my tears as i sat and spoke through gasping breaths, just as i could see pain through her tears as she helped me to get comfortable on my chair.
Can pain be any more bearable if mental as apposed to physical?
She knew there was nothing she could do to help me and the frustration at that made her cry, just as i was crying out of frustration of not being able to stop her cry.
Can any pain be lessened by anothers anguish?
'The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain' - Lord Byron
If pain is a feeling, is it a feeling we would rather do without? or is pain indeed what makes us know we are living.
Is it as essential in life as the air we breathe?
Do we need the sensation of pain to feel the sensation of living, is living pain?
Pain comes in all ways, none of which i feel outway another, each are as hard as the other, physical or mental, but i do wonder how much pain one body can go through physically before they are mentally pained.
Am i justified in my mental anguish when the physicality of pain is so exaggerated?
Does the invisibility of my illness make it less real to the human eye?
What cant be cured must be endured, will time and patience will make them easier?
Sunday, 10 June 2012
Friday, 1 June 2012
Eating Eating Eating
I thought i would write a blog about my weight issues as i have been moaning about it for a while
I often get asked ''why do you want to gain weight''
I think in an ever growing society of people who want to be a size zero and with anorexic websites becoming normal surfing for this generations teens, to find someone who actually wants to be bigger than they are is actually bit of a shock to the system for most.
But in truth you will find that most people with CF will be fighting just as hard as most with their diets, only not to cut out the calories but to add them in their food in as many ways as possible.
'CF Tummies' do work work as 'the norm' do. We suffer with malnutrition and extreme weight loss. We are unable to absorb the fat from food due to our pancreas not being able to release the enzyme in which to do so. Every meal and snack has to be supplemented with up to 40 pills which is an artificial version of the pancreas enzymes. The enzyme in the tablet is actually extracted from a pigs pancreas as it is the closest version of our own..sounds lovely...right?!
Even with our 'piggy pills' its still impossible to absorb all the fat, so to counteract this we simply have to eat!...and eat and eat and eat. 3000-4000 calories per day is needed to maintain a healthy weight, it can be even more when you are trying to gain.
So why the constant emphasis on food, well put in laymens terms, everything you do requires calories, walking talking, even breathing.
Our lungs have to work a hell of a lot harder than the average to function and our hearts have to pump faster just to 'breath' so with our lungs using more than the average calories a day, you can see why more calories are needed...to supplement our lungs needs
When infections are rife they love the calories too! If a healthy weight can be maintained whilst well it will mean when an infection rears its ugly head you will have more reserve to fight it with, instead of it taking every ounce of energy you have putting your weight lower and lower...its a constant cycle!
The iller you get the more your weight can suffer so 'feeding' is often used.
This is a small tube that goes up the nose, down the throat and in to the stomach. Although slightly uncomfortable to place the tube its not painful, and is much easier if you are able to do it yourself which thankfully i am, it takes less than a minute to do now, where as it took 10-15 minutes when i first started doing them as i would gag and be sick all the time...not very pleasent, but im a pro now lol :)
A bag of what looks like milkshake is hung up and fed through a pump which releases the feed in to your stomach over an 8 hour period whilst you sleep. The feed i have is 2500 calories. It takes the pressure off of having to constantly eat when you are ill especially if you sleep a lot.
I can go 3-4 days eating nothing, just survivng on cups of tea with sugar, ill only then start to get hunger pains and ill have a food binge and eat everything in sight, it wouldn't surprise me if i ate all those days missed calories in one sitting of junk food.
I have an unhealthy attitude towards food i know that, I see food as essential treatment, not a pleasure or something i enjoy, maybe as there is always so much emphasis on how much you eat and it is spoken about as much as any other part of my treatment the pleasure of it has been taken away, it can get stressful when im being told im to thin, i must eat more. I do know that and im not happy with the way i look i hate my hip bones sticking out and my spine being prominent but to fit so much fat in to your diet is hard work on top of all the daily treatment i do. As my health has declined my weight has to, it kind of goes hand in hand. When i was weller i loved food i ate all the time, loved cooking and trying out new recipes, eating out with friends, 3 course meals most days but now i actually find it hard to eat as being to full crushes my lungs and makes it even harder to breath, again another cycle!
My current weight is 45kg Im 5'2 so that makes my BMI 18.1
Ideally my BMI should be 23 so i have a way to go yet....
I often get asked ''why do you want to gain weight''
I think in an ever growing society of people who want to be a size zero and with anorexic websites becoming normal surfing for this generations teens, to find someone who actually wants to be bigger than they are is actually bit of a shock to the system for most.
But in truth you will find that most people with CF will be fighting just as hard as most with their diets, only not to cut out the calories but to add them in their food in as many ways as possible.
'CF Tummies' do work work as 'the norm' do. We suffer with malnutrition and extreme weight loss. We are unable to absorb the fat from food due to our pancreas not being able to release the enzyme in which to do so. Every meal and snack has to be supplemented with up to 40 pills which is an artificial version of the pancreas enzymes. The enzyme in the tablet is actually extracted from a pigs pancreas as it is the closest version of our own..sounds lovely...right?!
Even with our 'piggy pills' its still impossible to absorb all the fat, so to counteract this we simply have to eat!...and eat and eat and eat. 3000-4000 calories per day is needed to maintain a healthy weight, it can be even more when you are trying to gain.
So why the constant emphasis on food, well put in laymens terms, everything you do requires calories, walking talking, even breathing.
Our lungs have to work a hell of a lot harder than the average to function and our hearts have to pump faster just to 'breath' so with our lungs using more than the average calories a day, you can see why more calories are needed...to supplement our lungs needs
When infections are rife they love the calories too! If a healthy weight can be maintained whilst well it will mean when an infection rears its ugly head you will have more reserve to fight it with, instead of it taking every ounce of energy you have putting your weight lower and lower...its a constant cycle!
The iller you get the more your weight can suffer so 'feeding' is often used.
This is a small tube that goes up the nose, down the throat and in to the stomach. Although slightly uncomfortable to place the tube its not painful, and is much easier if you are able to do it yourself which thankfully i am, it takes less than a minute to do now, where as it took 10-15 minutes when i first started doing them as i would gag and be sick all the time...not very pleasent, but im a pro now lol :)
A bag of what looks like milkshake is hung up and fed through a pump which releases the feed in to your stomach over an 8 hour period whilst you sleep. The feed i have is 2500 calories. It takes the pressure off of having to constantly eat when you are ill especially if you sleep a lot.
I can go 3-4 days eating nothing, just survivng on cups of tea with sugar, ill only then start to get hunger pains and ill have a food binge and eat everything in sight, it wouldn't surprise me if i ate all those days missed calories in one sitting of junk food.
I have an unhealthy attitude towards food i know that, I see food as essential treatment, not a pleasure or something i enjoy, maybe as there is always so much emphasis on how much you eat and it is spoken about as much as any other part of my treatment the pleasure of it has been taken away, it can get stressful when im being told im to thin, i must eat more. I do know that and im not happy with the way i look i hate my hip bones sticking out and my spine being prominent but to fit so much fat in to your diet is hard work on top of all the daily treatment i do. As my health has declined my weight has to, it kind of goes hand in hand. When i was weller i loved food i ate all the time, loved cooking and trying out new recipes, eating out with friends, 3 course meals most days but now i actually find it hard to eat as being to full crushes my lungs and makes it even harder to breath, again another cycle!
My current weight is 45kg Im 5'2 so that makes my BMI 18.1
Ideally my BMI should be 23 so i have a way to go yet....
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