There Is Nothing Wrong With Me (Except There Is)

I went in last week for a private MRI.  It was a surprisingly relaxing experience – I spent my time cataloguing what all of the noises sounded like.  Most of them sounded like a really broken hard drive trying to work.  Some noises were like overbalanced washing machines.  Some sounded like the old 90s printers going nuts printing.

I got the report from my MRI today.  Everything is normal.  The brain is normal.  The nerve is normal.  There are no impingements, demyelination, nothing.  There is no physical reason for my trigeminal nerve to be permanently signalling pain.

I am devastated.  In a few days I’ll be relieved it wasn’t other things (like multiple sclerosis or a tumour), but for now I am distraught at the fact that they can’t fix this.  There is no cure.  They can’t make this pain go away.

This is my life.  Having a jaw that feels it’s being eaten away, a temple that aches and burns, a nose that feels like ice, and a brow and forehead that throbs.

Today I will be sad.  Tomorrow I will be angry and I will not let this be my life, come hell or high water.  But today I will be sad and accept where I am, which is in a lot of pain with no physical evidence to show for it.