My First Time

I've been wanting to start a blog for some time, but I've just never gotten around to it. I even set this up almost 2 years ago and never wrote a thing! But today, all that changes. I'm hoping that I have some things to say that might interest some people, and even if I don't, I'm writing this for me. I've written a journal for quite sometime, and I think I'm interesting! The primary focus of this blog is going to be my life and the things I'm going through.

The title of my blog is "It's a Pain". Why that title? I am one of millions of people around the world who lives with chronic pain. If you look at me, you aren't going to see anything wrong with me. If I had a nickle for every time I hear "But you look fine", I would be a wealth woman. What causes my pain? There are a few things which I'll put here. My primary pain is my back. I have several things wrong there. I have a condition called spondylolithesis, which is a condition in which the vertebrae slip out of place. I have had one surgery to fuse my L5-S1 vertebrae. Because of this, I have 2 rods and screws in my back to hold everything together. I had the surgery to relieve my pain, but it didn't work. In fact, the last MRI I had showed that even with the rods, my fusion has slipped slightly. Also, the vertebrae above this has slipped as well.

I also have Degenerative Disk Disease, otherwise known by the initials DDD. DDD occurs when the disks between the vertebrae begin to lose the cushioning ability. I have several disks which have lost all of the fluid in them, causing the bones to rub together. I also have several bulging disks and I have lumbar spinal stenosis, which is a narrowing in the space where the spinal cord runs. All of this is very painful.

I have severely bad knees which hurt all the time. I injured my right knee the first time when I was 14 years old. This required surgery. I subsequently required a total of 10 surgeries on this knee. The last one was the removal of my meniscus. The meniscus is the padding between the bones which forms the knee joint. Without the meniscus, the bones rub together causing tremendous pain. I'm now going to have to have a knee replacement.

Last, but not least, I have fibromyalgia. Fibro is intense, deep pain throughout the entire body. For me, this is a deep muscular ache. The best way that I can describe it is the way your muscles feel when you do really hard exercise after having not exercised for a very long time. Some days are worse than others. Some days, the pain is just hovering around the edges and I can function pretty well, and other days, it keeps me from moving very much at all. It also effects the way my mind functions. Those of us with this condition refer to it as fibro fog. I forget things that I know well. I lose words, and frequently get stuck when I'm trying to say something. I lose things, like my keys or my glasses. And it causes severe fatigue. Even when I get a good eight hours of sleep, I feel like I haven't slept at all.

So those are the things that I deal with every single day of my life. If you look at me, you won't see any of these things, but believe me, they are there. One day, I may be able to do all of the things I did before I started getting ill. But the next day, I may not be able to get out of the bed, and this may last for weeks or months. People don't understand chronic pain. If I told you that the pain you felt in child birth, or from breaking a bone would stay with you everyday for the rest of your life, you wouldn't believe it. I didn't believe it until I started living with it.

I don't want this blog to be depressing. I want it to be a place where I can honestly say what I think, feel and experience on a daily basis. I want to talk about what it's like to feel like I'm letting my children down when I can't be there for something they are involved in. And I want to talk about the great joys I have in my life. I hope that I have things to say that others can relate to, and I hope I open help open people's hearts to those who have chronic illnesses of any kind. Life is a journey, and I want to share my journey with you.