Today’s challenge will be to try and put together two articles I need to write combined with a very busy family schedule for today. It’s going to take every available spoon to get through the day but I’m confident I can do it. So you might be asking yourself what is a spoon? Well in my world the term spoon is making reference to the amount of energy that those of us who are chronically ill have. If that’s not confusing enough patients fighting chronic illness commonly refer to one another by the term “spoonies”. Confused yet? This all has to do with breaking down your day into manageable pieces through using spoons. Still confused? Let me shed some light on all this.

Today I want to talk about something that I think is a huge part of pain management that so often gets missed. If we are going to manage our pain effectively then breaking up our day into manageable pieces is crucial. Its like running your car with no oil! You will eventually do damage to the engine if you run the oil dry! So if you use up all your energy or “spoons” then you’ll find that the same thing will happen. You start to push yourself beyond your limits and end up setting yourself back. I use to push myself really hard because I just wanted life to be back to what it was before getting sick! This is something I have to still work at because sometimes I can’t always make the choices I’d like to and because of that I end up dealing with flare ups.

I know some of you are reading this thinking I’m crazy! Where did all this talk about cutlery come from and it makes absolutely no sense. When I first started hearing other people diagnosed with chronic illness talk about “spoonies” and “spoons” I had to wonder! Then I did some digging and found The Spoon Theory written by Christine Miserandino. If you want more information then I’d urge you to drop check out her site and it will explain more of how this theory was born! I think if your going to understand those of us that are sick better then you need to understand some of the terminology that we use.

So what are we talking about here? On any given day I only have so much energy and once my spoons run out I’m done for the day. It’s a way for those of us that are sick to manage our day in a very effective way. What this does is cause you as the one who’s sick to think ahead as to what effort its going to take in managing your day to day. In my case maybe its planning out that school concert of my daughters that I have to go to tomorrow. If I know that its going to take half of the spoons that I have for the day, then I have to make a plan for getting through the rest of the day with the remaining spoons that I have left.

The theory itself is really common sense in understanding that certain things are going to cause us to use up our spoons faster than others. So its trying to find that balance in order to get yourself through the day, so that just maybe you have one or two spoons left over! Now I know there are some of you thinking isn’t it just as simple as making up a schedule for the day. It isn’t that easy when your sick because you never know what each day is going to throw at you! There are days where it can take every ounce of strength to do one simple task.  I can’t wait for the day where I don’t have to manage my day in this way. For now I do though and it helps in reducing the number of flare ups that I have to deal with.

What I find is that so often we push ourselves past the point of no return with our pain and then we end up paying for it. That desire to do just that little bit more or for things to be the way they used to be takes over. This often sends our bodies into survival mode causing spikes in our pain and this vicious up and down cycle of flare ups, and so instead of being able to manage our illness we no react to it instead. I know that what I’m writing about today isn’t some complex theory or ground breaking discovery into a cure for a disease! I do however think that it’s a very important aspect of pain management that we need to be using.

At the end of the day it comes down to me doing everything possible to fight back against my illness and improve the quality of my life. Counting spoons is just another excellent tool to add to the toolbox!