Pain pills don’t work. Muscle relaxers don’t work unless I’m given enough to keep them in my system at all times. My doctors will only agree to 15 a month to use once the (daily) headaches start. They do nothing once the headaches start but they do work to prevent them. The doctors are worried I’ll become dependent and won’t enable me to live pain-free.

We disagree on whether or not dependence is a bad thing.

These days the bulk of my pain is in my shoulders and neck which then leads to tension headaches. Loosening those muscles and keeping them loose makes the headaches nonexistent.

But alas.

One thing they were willing to do for me is to get me in Physical Therapy which is doing wonders. But only gets me through part of the week. I need to be doing those exercises twice a week, but the set up on the home front makes that hard as there really isn’t a place to tie a therapy band down.

In unrelated news that is going somewhere, Thomas is currently going through pre-season workouts with intent to join the football team in the coming fall. He work-outs with the team Monday-Thursday but goes back over the weekend to work out some more with a buddy.

Yesterday he needed to blow off some steam and asked if I could drive him to the school so he could work out. I threw on some clothes and grabbed my keys and a book, fully intending to read while he worked out.

Then I smelled the smell of a weight room. And I’m telling you, that smell turns me jock every time.

I hate sports and I hate working out, but for some reason, I love to weight lift. I’m not interested in finding the max I can lift. I like a reasonable weight with a few sets of 10. Long and slow. I honestly crave regular access to this type of workout.

So I entered the weight room and immediately forgot about my book. With Thomas’s approval that I lift with him and a promise that I’d ask for help if needed, I started working out alongside him.

Chronic pain means I need to respect my limits. I can lift higher, but I went to a happy medium so I didn’t hurt myself further. I was able to really work my muscles and help take control of my health.

Of course, I woke up Sunday morning regretting life, but it was still a good type of pain. I’d earned the right to hurt like that by actually using my body.

We went back to the gym a few hours after I woke up, and picked up a friend and teammate of Thomas’s. They worked together spotting each other and trying to increase their maximums in various lifts. I tied my therapy band to a solid post and worked out my sore shoulder muscles. It did wonders in relieving the pain in them.

So I think that’s the plan. Saturdays we’ll go and we’ll lift together. Sundays we’ll go and I’ll work on my therapy bands. His friends are invited along so long as there is no fighting and no one makes fun of me for how I exercise.

Thomas assured me he’d punch anyone who did.

And I informed him that broke the no fighting rule.

But I think we’ll be fine.