Pain changes you. No if, ands or buts about it. It changes you physically. It changes you mentally and emotionally. Your whole life is thrown upside down. You now have limits on what you can do. Simple stuff like getting dressed can be a real pain. Even walking can be a challenge. Stop and think about that. We walk a lot every day. Doctors recommend walking to those who need to lose weight and have trouble with other exercises. How about walking around Walmart or some other big box store. Now what happens when that becomes hard to do ?
You must change your outlook. I used to pride myself on making the fewest trips needed to unload the trunk after a grocery store trip. Now I take 1 or 2 bags at a time. Gallon of milk ? Forget it unless it is above my waist. Case of Coke ? No way unless it is above my waist. Stuff on the bottom shelves of the store ? Nope not unless you can sweet talk someone into giving you a hand. I get some strange looks until I explain why I need a hand. Who would believe a six foot one inch 300 pound guy needs a hand at the grocery store ? How about cooking ? Not too hard right ? Well standing at the counter chopping veggies hurts. Trying to get the right pot or pan from the bottom cabinet is out unless the wife is handy to do it for me. Lifting my furbabies into the bath is out. Heck with one at 120 pounds and the other at about 80 lifting them is impossible. Playing with them is hard too. I have to get down on the floor. Lifting their food is just about impossible. Gardening is gone. No more perfect front yard. Now I have an overgrown jungle. The landscape timbers I so lovingly laid are deteriorating and I can't freaking replace them. Guess I will have to switch over to bricks to outline my garden, too bad I will have to pay someone else to lay them. I use to love getting dirt under my nails.
Swing on down past the orange snow doodle (new name soon as spring approaches) for more.
You are probably thinking my life sucks. Well it could. It really could suck if I let it. I hate what I have had to lose in my life. Hell my mom just had her first back surgery at 81 years old. They removed a small cyst and clamped 2 discs together. Within 3 weeks her pain was gone. She was off pain medication taking her life back. Here I am at 48 and my first surgery kind of worked but led directly to my new surgery and I am still in pain. I have a sentence of pain for the rest of my life unless science hurries up and figures out how to give me my monkey spine (They better include the tail. I really want that tail ! )
Life changes depending how you look at it. I could look at it and see all I have lost. Hell if I did that I probably would be locked in a padded cell. Instead I am looking at what I still have left. I have to if I want to keep sane. I am human and yes do get depressed. Depression goes hand in hand with chronic pain. It is both physical and psychological. Some doctors realize this and treat pain patients for depression or at least make sure they get help. Others don't but should as it is as much a part of pain management as opioid pain medications.
I have bad days. Days when the pain rises and rises and doesn't seem to stop. When nothing works to bring it down. Not laying down, not my medication, nothing. Those days suck and can strike without warning. I can be perfectly fine today well okay I can be in pain but not too bad of pain today. That is what I call fine. If I can get it down to around 5 I can function and that is a good day. So I can be "Fine" today and tomorrow the pain is horrible. It sits at 8 or 9 and you will do anything for relief. That can really screw up your schedule. The pain doesn't care if you have a family wedding or reunion or whatever. It doesn't care that you have a huge presentation to make at work. So you have to take it one day at a time. Enjoy your "Good" days and get through your bad ones.
What really sucks is that even though I am in pain management I live with pain. My good days are when my pain is at level 5. That is halfway up the scale. Well that is just moderate pain you will say. Yeah it is moderate if it is intermittent. When it is constant it is a real pain. It interferes with your daily activities. Doctors seem to think letting a patient live with some pain is good for them. They may have many reasons for this but it sucks ! Don't believe me ? Okay here is what you do. Have a buddy take a two by four and whack you on the back. Not too bad but wait now do it tomorrow as well and the day after and the day after and so on forever. Hey this is like those infomercials, there is always "more" ! that is how my back feels day after day on my good days. Bad days are just horrible. Best way to put it is after getting whacked have your friend heat up a poker until it s red hot and stab you in your spine and leave it there. But wait once again that's not all. I get the bonus. With all of my nerve damage I also get additional pain shooting down my legs and in my groin and recently it has also started in my right arm. So much fun at such a low price who wouldn't want it ?
Let me ask you this. Would you let a doctor treat half your flu ? How about half of your cancer ? Maybe only half your broken bones ? No ! You would demand they finish the job. Hell who wouldn't ? Well pain doctors think leaving the patient in some pain is okay. I don't want to be knocked out. I don't want to be floating around on cloud nine but I sure would like to have my pain a lot lower than it is. Heck even down to a 2 or a 3 would be nice. I realize that these are very strong opioid medications. I realize there is the potential for addiction. Guess what. I don't care. I will have this pain forever. Thus I will be on these drugs forever. why can''t I have less pain? Why is it good for me to live in pain ? Who says this is a good thing ? The answer to all of these is the freaking medical profession. Yep the same people who would NEVER think of treating half of a broken leg or half of a cancer believe that leaving people in pain is just fine.
That is completely nuts. I for one sure do not want to be a zombie, walking around on cloud 9 and having no clue what is going on but they will not even attempt to use stronger drugs to bring my pain down. They won't see how much better my life could be if they changed the drugs and used something stronger. It may be a complete flop. It may make me unable to function at my job but we don't know because they won't try. They think that it is perfectly fine to leave me in moderate pain for every day of my life. I am more than willing to try different drugs to see what the effect would be. Most people in chronic pain hate being left in pain. This needs to change. The medical profession needs to understand we are not all alike. What works for one does not work for all. Pain can not be fixed by an assembly line approach to medicine. Pain is not like other medical issues. It does not follow the same guidelines.
What can I do ? I complain too much and my pain management clinic will dismiss me. Good luck finding a new one after I have been dismissed. I can change clinics but that most likely will not fix it either. The new clinic will just stick me on their assembly line. This whole branch of medicine needs to evolve. The idea that leaving a patient in some pain is just fine needs to change. They need to be aware that each and every one of us is different. Our pain has different sources and causes. Thus it will have different solutions. Yes this means they can't spend 10 to 15 minutes with us and come up with a solution. It may take more time and experimentation to find the right drug cocktail to relieve our pain. It may mean adding PT and psychological branches to their clinics. I will continue to beat my head against the brick wall to change this but it will take more than one hard headed guy to bring about change. We need to band together all 100 million of us who suffer with chronic pain to get this changed. It is time to stand up even if it is only figuratively and be counted in this fight for our right to be pain free.