Intense Pain

I am seventeen hours into what I call a pain attack. Phantom limb pain. It's been a couple of weeks since the last one and it's never possible to say when the next one will occur. 

It's waning now, with attacks just once every twenty minutes or so. I did what I could today to distract myself, which stops them from hitting. The only real distractions are labor and interacting fact-to-face with others. These things work well, but it only draws out the total length of the attack and I can't talk to people or do household chores all day. When I talk to people as a means of relief, I feel a little guilty; I am using them.

I've written about this pain before, but last night, when it was underway, I thought for the first time that it felt as if a conscious entity was behind it and that it—whatever it was—got enjoyment from doing it.