I have been living with chronic pain for the last twelve years. As some of you know, I bent over to pick up a piece of paper, and the next thing I knew, I was experiencing the most soul-numbing back pain known to mankind, in my humble opinion. From that moment on, I have not known a pain free day. The day after it happened, I saw my doctor, who sent me to a neurosurgeon because he thought that I had herniated a disk. That wasn't the case, and I was told that it wasn't surgical at that point. I was then sent to physical therapy, which didn't help at all. The only thing that did help for a few hours was the electric stimulation and the hot packs. My next trip was to a pain management doctor. He gave me epidural injections, which didn't seem to do much of anything, either.
Eventually, I saw another neurosurgeon who told me that in his opinion, my condition had become surgical, and that it was severe at that point. He told me that I needed two surgeries - one to decompress my spinal cord and one to fuse a portion of my spine. He would handle the first part of the surgery, and an orthopedic surgeon would handle the second part, and they would do it during the same procedure. To be honest, I was told that there was a chance that it wouldn't relieve my pain, but at that point I was desperate. I would have done just about anything to stop the pain that I had lived with for the last two years.
Immediately following the procedure, I did get some relief. For about the first six months, I was almost back to normal, and then the pain began to return. The orthopedic surgeon kept telling me that it wasn't his fault, and the neurosurgeon left all of the follow-up to him. Eventually, I was referred back to pain management and diagnosed with failed back surgery syndrome and chronic pain. I started in with epidural injections again, which still didn't help. Eventually, I started to have pain throughout my entire body. My muscles ached so badly and nothing seemed to relieve the pain; even my skin hurt and I couldn't stand to have anything touch me. In time, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia.
And so, for the last twelve years, I have been in pain for just about every single day. I am not the same person that I used to be. I live under a veil of sadness that I used to not experience - there is sadness that I am not the mother and wife I want to be; sadness for the career that I lost; sadness for the inability to do many of the things I want to do. I want to be the person I was, but I fear that she is gone forever, and I have had to mourn the loss of her. I have also had to mourn the loss of the life I wanted to live.
Instead of being able to progress further in a job that I loved, I had to leave that job because I was no longer able to sit at a desk for eight hours. Instead of being able to go to my son's football and basketball games, I was at home trying to find a position that didn't leave me crying from pain. Instead of taking my kids to the movies, I would rent something for them, and then go into the bedroom and pray that they couldn't her me sobbing from that unrelenting pain.
Recently, my middle son started college, and I was so looking forward to taking him to school, helping him put his dorm room together, and starting him off on this next chapter of his life. In the back of my mind, I knew that it would be a challenge for me, but I kept telling myself that I could handle it. I completely miscalculated! By the time I reached the car to leave that day, I was in a kind of pain that I didn't think would ever come to an end. It took me over a week to be able to function again. A normal person wouldn't experience something like this! I want to be a normal person again!
Believe it or not, one of the few bright spots that I have found is Facebook. I have gotten to know others suffering with the same things that I suffer with. I have friends who actually understand what I am going through. I am able to get and give support to people who get it, and that is such an amazing blessing. It makes me feel almost normal again! I have met people who understand me and are willing to listen when I need to talk about the pain that I am in. I don't feel like I am annoying them and I don't feel like I have to smile and say I'm fine. You know who you are, and I am so blessed to have you in my life.
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