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Interview excerpt: Devon explains how some days she only has so much energy in reserve to manage the pain and that she must balance pain medication needs with being able to function.

© Disability NarrativesThere's a lot of that. That and not being there when people started working in the lab, or so forth, or just you know the spoon analogy sometimes I've just - I've run out of spoons and I've got to go home. You only have so many spoons during the day that you can spend with - of energy, of pain-free time, of whatever. So sometimes if you run out, that's - that's it. Like you're, you're done.

Before this past year, it was just - It was really brutal, [laugh] in terms of pain management. As in, I can't take any of the hard core meds, or I'm not functional, I can't do my work. So there's, there's a kind of balance of how much pain can you tolerate whilst still being functional? And it's a hard balance. The pain is, is much, much better now. Much improved. But it's still there. And it's - I don't think it's ever going to completely go away, but it's much more manageable now. And you know, I don't have to worry about, yeah, running out of spoons in the middle of things [laughing].

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