I still have gratitude on my mind (’tis the season, after all!). And right now I’m thinking what a miracle it is to feel good.
There are lots of times I don’t. I tend to get tension headaches, so if my day turns stressful (and it often does), I end up with a headache. Mostly, they’re minor, and easily ignored. Sometimes they need an over the counter pain remedy before they hit the road. It’s not a huge deal — but I am used to having some small level of pain in my head at any given time.
The days when I don’t have a headache at all? They feel like a miracle. It’s almost surprising — I suddenly notice that nothing hurts. It’s a lovely, light, peaceful feeling.
It reminds me of the days after I had my sinus surgery in 1996. I’d been suffering from one sinus infection after another, and no antibiotics would clear it up. Finally, my doctor decided I needed sinus endoscopy — the infected tissue would be cut away, and my deviated septum would be fixed to help improve function and drainage up in the nose region.
Before the surgery, I’d had a near-constant headache from the sinus infection. If you’ve had a sinus infection, you probably know what I’m talking about. After the surgery, I still had pain. Understandably so: my sinuses had been carved up!
But that first morning I woke up without a headache, and without any post-surgical pain? Was a miracle. I was used to being in pain, used to devoting a little bit of my day’s allowance of energy to dealing with the pain.
Sometimes, you don’t realize how much pain you’ve been in until it’s gone.
I think the same sort of feeling applies to coming out of a long illness. There are the first days, when you’re still weak and a little tender. You move gingerly through the world, not sure if you’re going to overdo it or not, and make yourself feel worse again. And then there’s the day when you know. You’re better, and it feels absolutely amazing.
Still, I like to think we need the bad days to help us really appreciate the good days. I hope you’re having one of the good days right now.