never-ending - day 649

I've made an interesting observation.

For people like me, who are in pain all the time regardless of activity or inactivity, light or dark, meds or no meds, sound or quiet, touch or isolation...

It becomes possible, after a while, to participate in limited activities that were out of the question a year ago.

It's not that I hurt less...it's that I've become so accustomed to it that on certain days and at certain times I can function past the pain on a limited basis as long as I know it's short-term. I also need to know I can decompress and rest afterward to recover.

Case in point:
The lawn.
The rider mower bit the big one.
We have 4.2 acres of land.
Hubby is working 60+ hours a week to pay the bills and keep us in drugs and such. He cannot come home after working that long in an un-air-conditioned factory in the mid-Missouri humid dripping wet hot summer and spend 3-4 hours mowing the lawn to keep it from turning into a prairie.
It hurts like hell to go out there and mow, yet, in the past couple weeks, I have done over 1/2 of our lawn with the gas-powered push mower.
I'm exhausted.
I'm dead on my feet.
But it's almost done, and I don't have to worry about my man being half-dead and falling over somewhere in the middle of his job and me being left alone.
Yes, I still hurt. I'm still miserable and I have tension headaches on top of all the other headaches and I hate it because I get eaten by bugs and sunburned and sweat drips into my eyes and I stink.
However, this is what we have to do until we have the money to either replace or repair the rider mower, and that won't be any time soon.

Anyhow, it was interesting to notice it.

Pain level - 7-8 most of the time unless I take a day of doing nothing; then 5-6.

Acetaminophen - 2-3 times a day, 2 extra strength = 1000 mg twice a day at least. Bye bye, liver!

I'm going to try to find a PCP who will be willing to work with me on the pain meds. Maybe one of the newer docs out in this area will do it. They're not new docs, just have a new office in the next town over.

Eyes hurt. Head hurts. Body not as sore as it was last week but my right hip still is not happy with me.