@tazscott.... I agree. Distractions, or enjoyable activities that you get caught up in make a painful day pass much more pleasantly. Make a short list of 3 or 4 activities that incite your creativity, are productive, or include others into your day. Choose one to put effort into. Painfilled days quickly pass when we fill our time with enjoyable activities. Plus, when we produce...baking, music, sewing, helping others...we have purpose. It's easier to do nothing. But what have we to show for our time? Nothing. How satisfying is that? Believe me...if it moves...MOVE IT! If you don't, it's true, you WILL lose it.

I speak as one who has many serious pain issues. I take low dose pain meds. Minimal relief, but I am grateful. The less I focus on me, the more I value life. Even on days I'm feeling like crap....suffering greatly. When the most I can do is pull one of my many littles (grandkids) on my lap and look at picture books and listen to their chatter....on those miserable days, I smile and so do my kids! We create good memories despite the beast. Don't let the beast run you. If you do, it takes over. We all know there are people suffering more than us. Yet they keep on keeping on. So can we.

Chronic severe pain has a way of stealing all our joy, all our energy if we let it. One may say "yeah, but you don't have MY awful pain." I know pain. Awful pain. Not talking about small stuff. But because I want to do more than exist, I must make the effort to distract myself so the daily beast is secondary instead of the daily main event. I want to live, not merely exist. And I wish that for others. Blessings JMJ