Tag / pinocchio

by Erin Nowicki

Pinocchio

I promise I won’t label every blog after a fairytale…sometimes I just can’t help that I relate so much to fairytales. I guess it’s because I’m a REAL princess. 😉

“Can you please rate your pain level for me: 10 being the worst and 1 being the best?”

For someone with Sensory Processing Disorder, this can be a difficult question to answer. The thing is, for me, something as simple as running into a doorframe makes my arm feel like it’s immediately bruised or even cut open; to the point where I sometimes get shocked that I’m not bleeding like crazy because it hurts so bad. So, when someone asks me how bad it hurts or to compare the pain to something, my gauge is most likely wrong in a sense. I wasn’t planning on sharing this story (because it’s kind of embarrassing hehe), but it popped in my head while writing this and thought you might like it.

When I was 13 or 14 years old, my family moved off of the Army base and into our first owned house. On moving day, we had been offloading the truck with all of our furniture. It took us the entire day and even when the sun went down, we were still moving stuff. I decided to take a break and go explore my new backyard. The yard was dimly lit, but I saw this beat up dodgeball laying on the ground. And as any kid does when they see a ball and a big backyard before them, they run up and kick it as hard as they can.

It. Wasn’t. A. Ball.

This story is so funny to me now because I legitimately thought that silly rock was a dodgeball and after looking at it the next day, it clearly looked nothing like a ball. Although, in that moment it was embarrassing because honestly, I felt so stupid. My purpose wasn’t only to make you smile with my clumsiness, but to give you an example of how difficult it is to answer the “rate your pain” question.

I have never broken a bone in my life, but in that moment I sure thought I had broken my foot on that massive rock. As soon as I gained my composure, I ran inside the house and called my parents, while sobbing and freaking out because my foot had to be broken. As my parents hurried to take off my shoe and check it out, you guessed it, nothing was wrong with it at all. Are you serious?! What about my toe? It has to be broken! What, it’s not?! But it hurts so incredibly bad, how could nothing be broken?

I hadn’t been diagnosed with SPD yet, so we didn’t realize that I was truly feeling excruciating pain…even though it obviously was not even close to being broken. They asked me to rate my pain and of course I rated it a high 10, but because the physical sight didn’t prove this rating to be accurate, they gave me some ice and I was walking around 10 minutes later with a perfectly fine foot.

This is the part where Pinocchio comes in. 😀

Over the years I’ve had to make decisions when it comes to rating my pain for doctors or even people when they are curious about how different things make me feel. I am thankful I’m not Pinocchio because sometimes I’ve chosen to lie when people ask me if it hurt. I would have a long nose with a cute, little birds nest on the end. 😀

Now I don’t usually condone lying, but when someone asks me if something hurts, and I can logically see that it probably shouldn’t be hurting, I will sometimes choose to lie and say that it doesn’t hurt. I guess my thought is that I don’t want to have to explain my entire disorder, then proceed to explain that it does hurt even though what they are probably doing doesn’t bring pain for a “normal” person, or admit to them that something silly hurts me….wow that was a mouthful.

Maybe this is justifying my lying or maybe not, but a question I ask myself: is it really lying or is it me fighting my disorder in order to strive for “normality”? I like to think of it that way, because it helps me to keep going and fighting this frustrating and maddening disorder. So, if being Pinocchio is my fate, I accept it for now. 😀

Do you have a hard time rating your pain? Do you pull the Pinocchio card to get out of having to explain SPD? I would love to hear from you about how you make those ratings- drop a comment below or feel free to email me!

by Erin Nowicki

The Princess Chronicle vol. 2

Welcome to The Princess Chronicle!

Thanks to everyone who messaged me about how they loved the format of my little newspaper-style post; I think it definitely helps break up the flow from those longer blog posts. If you have any ideas of what else I could add to The Princess Chronicle, drop a comment or message me!

Bi-Weekly Journal Entry

Positive: The hunky and I went camping this past weekend at Chain O Lakes near the Wisconsin border. It was so fun, relaxing and invigorating. My SPD didn’t flare up too bad either, so that made it even better. I made sure to bring some compression socks, which helps my SPD in the evenings when it gets colder.

Real Talk: Now I love roughing it in a tent and sleeping on the ground, but the whole Princess and The Pea thing is legit. I can feel every rock, pebble and bump in the ground. Thankfully I have to take medicine to sleep, because I know I would’ve been up all night feeling the “pea” under my sleeping bag. I love to camp, so it’s totally worth it.

The vast majority of health professionals just want to help, so describing your challenges as accurately as possible is really the best approach. Plus, advocating for yourself is important…

-Some great advice from the Love, Your Brain blog

What You Missed Last Week

My hunky, Jon, took time to answer some questions about what it’s like to live with someone who has SPD. He did such a great job and it’s been really cool to see the responses to this. It’s also been neat to hear how his post has already helped others with their relationships. If you missed it, go check it out and if there is another question you’d like answered, make sure to comment on the post so we can do another round!

What To Look Forward To

Next week, I’ll be talking about how hard it is to rate my pain when people inquire about it (especially doctors). I sure am glad that I’m not Pinocchio, because sometimes I have to lie about my pain in order to really have them diagnose the problem…hmmm interesting eh? Make sure to check back next week for more!

If you aren’t a blog person, head over to Twitter and follow me there! I will post little blips from the blog, inspiring quotes, and other fun things.