Strawberry

I haven't been feeling so great lately, physically or mentally, so I have been employing lots of learned, healthy coping skills and trying to stay afloat in this search for a cure, or at the very least, some real pain management. I'm heading back to my pain management doctor early, this Monday, because I am not a fan of the pain patches. I cannot sacrafice that much mental clarity for a medication that is barely increasing my quality of life. For some, sacraficing mental clarity for pain relief is a great option, but I'm a graduate student, and there is only so much mental clarity I can lose before I become useless in my tasks. You can't f*ck around like that in graduate school, to give it to you straight, because it is difficult enough as it is to get all of that work done without large amounts of opiod medications.. this is a conversation to be had on Monday with my physician. Oxycontin or Methadone seem like good options now, since I am more opiod tolerant than I was before, and at 108 pounds of muscle, it's better to be safe than sorry.

Does a little piece of you die when yet another treatment fails? Yes, absolutely, and after 4.5 years of failed treatments, it just becomes more difficult to grow that piece of you back. A lot of energy every single days goes into keeping yourself sane.

I interviewed at a new, possible field placement for this fall that I absolutely adored. It is an outpatient behavioral health program, and I would be working in the adult day program for the MICA population, which translates to mentally ill and chemically addicted. I'd be doing case management and therapy groups, and one group happens to be a "wellness group" focusing on things like diet and nutrition. Right up my ally :-) Cross your fingers for me that I get the position!