Summer of My Discontent, State of the Self, Etc.

WORK:  Hey, my job is... boring.  Easy, but also boring.  By the third time around with the same lab, I am really a little tired of it.

I continue to look for Another Job.  There continue to not be Other Jobs here.

The downsides of adjuncting - the unpredictability has been much improved by New Chair - are that it never changes, and there's nowhere to go, professionally speaking.  How many years in a row do I want to do Intro Chem Lab?

(Although the biology department wants me too and there is room for something different, eventually. Still.)


SELF: I have had a headache for 106 of the last 110 days.  It's maybe getting better.  I think.  Maybe not.  Here, let me make you a chronic pain scale:

0: Feel like a normal human being.  Stabbing chronic pain?  What's that?  Also puppies, kittens, unicorns.
1: It hurts like I whanged my elbow on something, or stubbed all my toes.  But not quite all the time.
2: It hurts all the time.  I can ignore it for multiple hours at a time!  Possibly I can sleep!  (With drugs.)
3: I can ignore the pain for an hour at a time.  The laundry mountain is growing and the kids are eating Cheese on Bread two meals a day.
4: I cannot ignore the pain at all, and the spiders are taking over the basement.  Getting the mail is a challenge.  It hurts to move.
5: At least 2 hours/day of laying in bed, considering sticking myself in the head with a small knife. I cry when the children touch me.
6: Considering a larger knife.  I scream when the children touch me.
7: Seriously considering throwing self under the next passing large truck.
8: Would throw self under truck, but it hurts too much to get out of bed.
9: Would like to die imminently.
10: Can only lay in bed weeping.  Can barely get up to go to the bathroom.  No quality of life, would prefer to be dead RIGHT NOW.

It's at least a 4 or 5 every day.

(I am not actively suicidal.  But also, is my pain adequately controlled?  AH HA HA HA NO.  My otherwise-excellent PCP suggested that I might be at risk of opioid addition*.  I take 2.5 mg of opioid per DAY.  No.  Though partly I take that little because I fear that doctors will not prescribe me enough adequate pain relief NO REASON.)

I've run out of ETC.  Happy Friday!

*  "Rates of opioid abuse or dependence diagnosis ranged from 0.7% with lower-dose (≤36 MME) chronic therapy to 6.1% with higher-dose (≥120 MME) chronic therapy..."