ad desperatio est humana

You know that expression "nil desperandum"? I think it's bollocks.

I have had enough. Totally and utterly pissed off with the whole situation. So if I want to indulge in a bit of "desperandum" then I'm bloody well going to.

If the Grim Reaper had turned up at our house yesterday, I would have welcomed him in and given him a cup of tea. It was an awful day - I was constantly in pain that would not let up. I struggle to explain what it's like to people. Day to day, it's just like having a really bad dose of 'flu - your body just aches but you can't point to a specific place where it hurts. It comes and goes but you learn to live with it, deal with it. It's unpleasant but you learn strategies to manage it.

But yesterday? Yesterday was like being in the middle of a car crusher. It just felt like every bone in my body was getting smashed into tiny pieces whilst simultaneously a blow torch was being enthusiastically applied to those soft and wrinkly parts of my body that one doesn't discuss at polite parties.

I was listening to a webchat by a pain management professional who described the sensation that many chronic pain victims experience. He said: "it's like every pain receptor in their body is wide open with no means of closing them whilst being massaged by a cheese grater ". I have no idea if that is medically accurate, but it was a bloody good description of how I feel on days like yesterday.

When I am having a day like that, one thing is absolutely and utterly inevitable: I will get angry and frustrated and end up in tears. "Why the **** do I have to go through this?", "Why the **** did this happen to me?", "What I have done in my life that is so awful that this is my payback?", and more overwhelmingly, "please make it ease off for just a few seconds" are pretty typical thought processes.

And right there - right at that point - that is when despair is not only present - it is wrapping itself around me like an over-affectionate onesie (no, I don't have one and never will). It is gripping onto me like a limpet crab with abandonment issues. And I am welcoming it wholeheartedly. Because right at that moment, it is the only thing that is giving me solace.

I know this is rather morbid and probably uncomfortable for some, but right at that point where one hits the bottom, there is immense comfort that the prospect of death will bring a release from pain. There is that small light that allows you to believe that there is this one thing over which you still have some control: You can choose to stop fighting.

Of course, for now, I choose to continue fighting but at least I still have that choice within my control. I still have some degree of personal empowerment. And that's so critically important because I have no control over so much of my life - that control is owned by my medical teams and the clinicians who look after me and I am grateful for them. But more than anything else, control lies this with this f***king awful disease that I have. It dictates my life whether I like it or not.

So whilst some people may disapprove of my enthusiastic welcoming of the fact that I always have the choice to stop fighting, it remains an important weapon in my arsenal. As the title of this article says, to despair is human. I am content that thus far, despair has never triumphed to the point where I have seriously considered abandoning the fight. Yes, of course there are days when I find it a cataclysmic struggle to paint that cheerful smile on my face when I face the world beyond our front door. But thus far, I choose to continue to fight the good fight. But knowing I have that one small sliver of control left over my life is empowering and allows me to bounce back and pick up where I left off.

And, for now, I absolutely and passionately choose to pick up where I left off.

Stay strong. Fight hard. Smile lots.