OH What a Night!

     O.K. I had "one of those" nights.  I know all of my RA brothers/sisters have had them.  You go to bed in pain, hoping the pain meds kick in at some point and allow for sleep.  If you happen to doze off and move, WHAM!  It hits you and believe me, you are wide awake, wondering if you will ever have the courage to move again.    My pain filled night started innocently enough.  I needed to go for my MTX shot on Wednesday and a friend decided to go along.  I drove, since it was my shot.  I got my injection, switched an appointment around, ate lunch and shopped at one place for maybe 20 minutes.  The lunch was delightful, but during shopping I got that creeping pain feeling.  My shoulders/neck were literally on fire.  This is not good, I said to myself.  I need to get HOME!  As I drove the 30 minutes toward home, both hands on the steering wheel, AC blasting (there is no way in my little car to keep it from blowing in me!), my neck got tighter and tighter.  My pain level went up and up. I made it home, took some pain meds and went to bed.  I'm not sure that was the right thing to do because more inactivity made everything tighter and the pain even higher.     And so went the evening on into the night.  I even got up in the night when my 6 hour time limit on pain medication ran out and took more.  By the time 5:00 A.M. rolled around, staying in bed any more was not an option.  I don't know how long it took me to get dressed, but every movement was excruciating.       I decided to go ahead and try to swim.  When you are in that much pain, why not?  I managed half of what I usually do, in the same amount of time, and well, I felt a little better.  At least I didn't feel like I needed to stop by the hospital on my way home.       How, I asked myself, can I keep this lower pain level?  What can I do?  No matter how much I want to go back to bed, that is not the answer.  So I made a plan.  I will move every 30 minutes, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how hard it is, I will change positions, roll my neck, shrug my shoulders and MOVE!  So that is what I did.  I did a load of laundry.  I sewed.  I washed a few dishes.  I played on the computer.  I even laid on the sofa and read a little.  I kept one eye on the clock and did not let myself vary.     And you know what?  It was a pretty good morning. The morning that I had dreaded all night, the morning that even the thought of going through had reduced me to tears, the morning was pretty darned good.  I felt like I got a lot done.  Even more, I felt like I thought of something more than just RA and PAIN.     So now I am writing this.  I am writing so I will remember that even when pain gets bad, over the top, I can find ways to cope with it and cope with it successfully.  When it hurts that badly, I get scared.  And I need to take that feeling out of my mind.  I need to remember, that yes, I have done this before and yes, it will happen again.  And most of all, YES I can cope with RA pain.