Spanking angst...again

It's been 203 days since I last saw A. That's almost seven months, my friends. If it wasn't for the pictures on my bookshelves and bulletin board, I think I would have forgotten what my beloved even looks like by now. When November 13th rolls around, we will have broken the record for time apart formerly held by the 2004 interlude of 216 days.

But November 13th will be 229 days, so why mention that date rather than November 2nd? Well, that's A's arrival date. Yes, we've finally scrapped together enough money for a transatlantic flight (how on earth have we managed more frequent visits in the past?) and he booked the ticket yesterday morning. There will be cuddling again. Lots of it. And yes, probably some spanking.

It's like life is really starting to feel somewhat normal. Somewhat.

Last week I found myself fantasizing about spanking on a sustained basis again after a month-long hiatus due to yet another bad pain month. By Sunday I was frisky enough to be naughty on the phone with A., earning myself a sort of pseudo-punishment spanking with the ping pong paddle. I was even given a bedtime before he got off the phone to go to bed himself. There in the twilight after saying good night to my sweetie, my fingers wandered. Despite being somewhat nervous that I was still too weak for an orgasm, I went ahead and rubbed and came. And for a moment as I gazed at the graying brick wall outside my patio door, the world felt right again. I was a spanked, disciplined, naughty girl -- the way it's supposed to be.

But then the magic broke. All I could think of was that I'll probably be in the same place five, six months from now: laying on my bed alone in the dark after climbing my way out of the abyss yet again because of another virus or major pain event. It felt daunting. Even a tiny bit hopeless. Any joy spanking had been giving me evaporated.

And it didn't help that the next morning I woke up distressed -- again -- about whether spanking is making these pain events more frequent and more intense by exacerbating the central sensitization at the heart of fibromyalgia. I know I decided awhile back that spanking represents acute pain and that according to at least one study the brain processes chronic and acute pain differently. But, it was just one study. And surgery isn't chronic pain, yet it most definitely exacerbates central sensitization. Yes, I know spanking is nowhere close to surgery. But it is pain. Sometimes a lot of pain. Though, to be fair, the anticoagulants limit just how hard we can play now. So, I dunno. Maybe it all evens out.

I thought I was over all this angsting about returning to spanking after one of these episodes. I thought I'd just learned to accept that I go through them and for awhile afterwards the thought of getting spanked sounds a bit repulsive but I wait it out and then my inner pain slut returns. I must have written about this cycle a gazillion times by now. So why do I feel so afraid this time? So fragile? I mean, I was done being fragile a week or so after having blood clots in my lungs. What was so traumatizing about this time?

I suppose with the clots in my lungs there was some conclusion regarding why I was in so much pain. And now I'm on medication which should keep me from ever getting them again. Not to mention that oddly enough, I actually felt less flu-like than I normally do for the first couple of weeks after the clots.

This time they really don't know what caused that horrific pain at the base of my spine -- so oblivious to potent narcotics -- a month ago. My doctor and I talked about the possibility of endometriosis as the only sort of pattern to it is that it shows up (though not usually as bad) a week or so before my period or whenever I lay on my back (but also at perfectly random times too). So I visited the gynecologist last week, who broke the news that my chances of finding a surgeon willing to do a laproscopy (the only way to definitively diagnose endometriosis, as well as remove endometrial implants) on someone taking Coumadin was slim. And most of the hormonal treatments will make my ME/CFS worse (Eeek! If it gets much worse, someone is going to have to bathe and feed me!). About the only treatment she could recommend was Mirena, a progesterone-only IUD, which for reasons that I don't know how to articulate well, just feels very wrong for me.

But, of course, it may not be endometriosis at all. And it's the mystery of it that feels so scary now. What if I do something that inadvertently causes it to return? What if it returns even if I do nothing? What if -- God forbid! -- it's even worse next time?

Why the hell have the fetish gods played such a cruel joke in giving a chronic pain patient a fetish that involves pain?

No matter how desperately I want them, I know there aren't any easy answers to my questions. Yes, I will get pushed back down into the abyss of illness and pain again. And again I will climb my way back out because it beats staying in the abyss.

But instead of focusing on the inevitable horrors to come, I will chose to live right now. I will revel in the knowledge my dearest is coming in 26 days. I will patiently wait for my spanking mojo to return because it will. And ultimately I'll dive back into living -- including spanking -- as much as I can.

I mean, I can't let the pain win, ya know?