Category: Chronic pain

nuances of Chronic Pain

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, cauda equina syndrome, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders, suicide

Today has already been a long day. I again had weird dreams and then woke up before my alarm by at least a half hour. I didn’t do anything to wake up. I just went to the bathroom and then went back to sleep until the alarm went off. I should have grabbed a pop tart as I was hungry by the time I got dressed and stuff. I had my coffee and wrote until it was time to see my doc.

I am happy that I my PCP listened to me and gave me enough pills to cover me for the month. However, I am unable to fill it. I have to wait two days for my next refill. I had a feeling it was going to be too early and I was right. Fuck! I have two pills to last me 2.5 days? And then the pharmacist tells me they are changing the classification of the medication. I don’t know what that means. She said I would have to go to the doctor to get the prescription. Well, I do that anyways so I don’t see the big deal. They already ask me for my ID. Now if they need a diagnosis, they are getting cauda equina syndrome.

After my appointment, I felt a little energetic so I walked the long block to the other bus stop. I did it in less than 10 mins, which is good for me. It was 0.4 miles. I am guessing that is my limit without pain. If I walk more than that, then I am hurting, which is good to know. I didn’t have to walk back so that was good. I figure, if I can slowly increase my walk route, from where I walked before (1.2 miles roundtrip) I should be able to slowly lose weight and feel better about walking. But then there are days where just going around the block can cause me pain so I guess today is a good day. It started out rough because I was walking in mud. I didn’t think I would be able to walk to the bus stop when I left my house this morning. But after my doctor’s appointment, I had some energy and felt like I could do it. I know there are time I might not be always able to, but today I count that as an accomplishment. Now, to just hope that I am not hurting big time tonight and the next few days. My ankle is throbbing but it’s mild. I am not swearing, least not yet.

So I am disappointed that I can’t get the new script filled and that next month might be more of a hassle getting it filled. I knew these changes were going to happen. It’s all because a senator’s son overdose on narcotic medication. His belief is that the meds “caused him to commit suicide, not the pain”. What a crock. He is clueless so people with chronic pain now have to suffer because of this idiot, who is not even a medical professional!! I really “love” when these non-medical people make decisions for us. It makes treating chronic pain that much more difficult and no one many commit suicide because they cannot be helped by their doctors.

I did have a problem with making a month appointment with my doctor for next month. I just hope it isn’t too soon or too late. That is the problem that I have been having lately, getting an appointment with my doctor for my pain meds. It shouldn’t be this hard. So I have to wait for the secretary to call me.

I am glad I can walk the distance I did today. I hope that tomorrow I can walk again without pain. But we’ll see what happens tonight.

Thirteen Years Later

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

Thirteen years later

I started writing a little bit about the attacks on Sept 11th, 2001, but then I realized I am not a political individual and my opinions may not be heard without some come back. I do know this. After thirteen years, our troops are still not home and maybe fighting another battle in the years to come. Now the enemy seems to be ISIS, whatever that stands for. I see the reports on Yahoo News on my twitter feed. Each day I realize that we are getting closer to another world war. I hope I am wrong for my nieces and nephew’s sake.

I had my appointment with my father today. Appointment was scheduled for 0930. An hour later, we see the doc. Never fails. It went well overall. But I am tired because I didn’t get my coffee this morning. Because my bus was late, I had to get coffee at the convenience store. I didn’t have time to walk to Starbucks.

I was able to remember the power cord to charge my laptop in case it became low on battery. But you think I remembered to bring my phone charger? No. It didn’t occur to me until I got to Starbucks and was checking my FB feed. I still have time to go home and get it but then, by the time I get home, it will be time for me to go back out again. I hate having an appointment so far apart from each other. But I rather be in Starbucks than at the hospital. I went to the one in my home town rather than the one in Boston. No need to stay in town when I can be elsewhere and won’t bump into people I know. Someone at the docs office recognized me from high school. I never seen her before nor did I recognize her. I didn’t even get her name, but she knew me. Oh well.

I desperately want a nap. I might ride the trains to kill some time. I slept really good last night, until my alarm woke me up at 0730. I forgot to pack my lunch that I made before going to bed last night. Now I will have to buy lunch. But I am not hungry as I just had breakfast, LOL.

Another day that goes by that I don’t make an effort to get my car out of the driveway. I need to call a junk place and get it out. They will actually pay me for pick up so I don’t know why I am procrastinating. Google will give me at least 10 places I can call. I just don’t know what to say. I have problems talking with people on the phone. I rather text or email them. But for this, I just cannot do that. I did call one place before I went into the hospital, but they didn’t call me back. They were going to pay me at least $200 for the car. Oh well. I will get another place. At this point, I really just want the car gone. It is literally falling apart and won’t survive another winter sitting there.

The temp for today was supposed to be in the 80s and humid. It is neither. There was also a call for rain but now it’s been pushed to the evening. I am glad because I hate carrying my laptop if there is a chance of rain. But when I left the house, it didn’t look like rain and the weather was in the upper 60s. I hope it doesn’t get to be 80. My back will hurt big time. That is one thing I hate about the temperature changes. Drastic shifts always cause my spine to hurt. I have arthritis in my lower back and I can feel the changes in temp when it is 20 degrees or more. Last winter was horrible. I was hurting almost every other day because the temp kept on going from 50s to 30s or lower. Snow and rain don’t really affect me as much. I long for the day when it was just my knees that hurt from the weather. I have moved passed that since my back surgeries, oddly enough, thirteen years ago. Least for the first two. The third and 4th would come five years later.

I have decided to conserve battery power by listening to Pandora as I sit in Starbucks writing this. It’s not the same music that is on my MP3 player but it’s music. I got 3 hours before I have to go to my appointment. Time is crawling. My leg is hurting me with the brace on. I just loosened it so that it’s not irritating me so much. I hate being in the AFO all day but it’s better safe than sorry as I am trying to avoid pain. I am not walking or anything. I am just sitting while I am typing this. It annoys me that I can do nothing, yet still be in pain. Drives me bonkers.

Just got a “trend” alert about Gmail. If you use it, please change you password immediately. Hackers were able to publish 5 million passwords online. I just changed mine, though I hardly use it since the privacy factor is gone. I still have it just in case someone uses it. Now it’s mostly junk mail I get. I also had to change my therapist’s password. I had set up an email for her so she could read my blog but it never worked out. Turns out texting her the link to my blog works better for her. She is not tech savvy.

Midnight demons are out tonight

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders, suicide, suicide attempt

Midnight demons are out tonight

Since Midnight I have been in some serious pain. I got very distress and despondent. I thought about killing myself and was cursing my therapist for allowing me to still exist. A blogger friend was posting blogs so I asked her if she wanted to chat and we chatted for a few hours. She had to go because she had some stuff to do in the morning. Which is fine. I understand.

I still am in pain three hours later despite taking pain meds and using a pain gel. I don’t think I am going to sleep tonight and all I can think about is killing myself. I posted on FB that I wanted to use a chainsaw to chop my leg off. I seriously wonder if that is the better course of action. Just cut out the part that is hurting. I know there will be something called phantom pain afterwards but it can’t be worse than what I am going through right now. At least then, I will know WHY I am in pain. There is NO FUCKING REASON why I should be in pain. I didn’t do a damn thing today to warrant this pain. There is nothing wrong with my damn foot and ankle. Yet it hurts really bad. And it is burning me so bad. Pain is so bad I can’t even describe it. All I know is that I am hurting and want to kill myself. Just everything is dark and gray. I feel so hopeless. I know I am never going to get better.

I was talking with an ex-coworker tonight. I missed talking with her and she answered my text. We chatted for a bit and she asked when I was coming back to work. When I said I didn’t know if I could because of my pain, she chimed in that if I stop complaining maybe I would have my job back. I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe she would say something so insensitive. My pain is real and I suffer greatly. I don’t know why I suffer the way I do but I do. I got really upset. But then I thought she is ignorant and doesn’t know what I go through every day. She doesn’t know how hard it is going down the stairs or that I have to limit my standing time or I will pay dearly for it. Sure I can suck it up and not complain. But then it will only fuel the demons. I kept quiet about my internal psychological pain for years and where did that get me? Nothing but psych hospitalizations after psych hospitalizations. Lead to cutting and drinking and more hospitalizations. So when I can finally express myself, why should I keep my physical pain inside? That is one of the reason why people kill themselves because people don’t know just how bad their pain hurts them. That is why people see their doctors only to get turned away because their pain doesn’t show up on any test. My x-rays and MRI shows there is nothing physically wrong with me. Yet my pain is real and it hurts really bad right now. So bad I am thinking of taking my life. So how can that be made up? How can it be held inside? The longer I keep it to myself the deeper it grows. They say that if you swear after stubbing a toe it lessens the pain. Well no matter much I swear, there is no lessening of this pain. I must rely on pain medication to help me deal with my pain. I wish it worked on my psychological pain but it doesn’t. Nothing helps my psychological pain. When both flares up (physical and psych) I am in the deepest waters struggling to stay afloat. Sometimes I am successful and sometimes I am not. When I am not, someone comes by with a dinghy and I stay afloat.

I think my foot hurts just because it wants to. I think that I have been in pain for so long it doesn’t know what else to do but hurt me. And that causes my demons to worse and give me self doubt that this is all in my head. My therapist thinks that because of PTSD I have to be treated for my pain for my own safety. That if I am not treated, my PCP might as well just sign my death certificate. She is partially right. But I have a high pain tolerance and I haven’t been in this much pain in sometime. I know it is because the weather changes and having Hurricane Arthur pass by didn’t help me much. Plus this whole up 90 degrees and then down to 70 degrees really wrecks havoc on me. That’s a 20 degree difference. It hurts!

I keep looking at my pill bottle and wonder what will happen if I empty it. I have never OD’d on Tylenol before so I am kind of scared that it will cause me liver damage that I will regret. I think that is the only thing saving me from taking the rest of the bottle and hoping for the best. If I had a barbiturate or some other powerful sedating drug handy, I would take it. I just need/want some sleep. It’s 0330. I am glad I don’t have to get up early tomorrow. But I know I am only going to get a few hours of sleep and wake up. Probably wake up at 6 or 7. I might as well wait till 0400 to try and get some sleep. I took two pain pills to try and get me to calm down this pain. I just need it to be a 3 so I can sleep. It is a 7 on a scale of 1-10. I am sure that once I get nice and comfy, I will have to use the bathroom. Never fails. UGH how I hate that.

I fired my therapist today, several times

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders, suicide

It is really hot today and the humidity is killing me, making me really irritable. I only left my room for the usual items: coffee, food, and bathroom. I did manage to go to the bank to make a withdrawal. I am going to ask my Brother in law for some cash because I need my meds. And this month I am short. It’s my own fault because I thought I wouldn’t need groceries. I can never keep it to the minimum of what I need.

Sallie Mae keeps calling me every three hours now. I am going to answer the next time they call and make them look like a fool. If they ask what can I pay them, I will say $10/month. Screw them. I can barely buy groceries and they want $132+ dollars a month? Fuck them.

I talked to my therapist even though I fired her. I wasn’t in a talking mood. She did the SSF to see where I was. I was so out of it I don’t remembered what I answered. Doesn’t matter now. My sister is home so I can’t kill myself even if I really wanted to. There is no way I am killing myself with the potential of my little niece finding me. So I am stuck here, again. And I am not happy about it.

The only good news to report is that my pain levels have shifted downward. I am not in as much pain as I was. I hope this stays this way for the next week because I am out of my pain meds, again. I don’t know what possessed me to have my doc reduce my number of pills. Course, there was a time when I was hardly taking them. I would have pain flares at least twice a month. Now it’s like almost every week. I know it is just to adjust to the temperature. I get that but why does it have to be so painful?

I started a letter, in a word doc, that I thought I would post as a blog. It was for my therapist and her foolish ways about me wanting to live. Anyways, it got a little more personal than I would like and never published it. I might read it to her tomorrow or might password it so she can open it but she isn’t too tech savvy so I am not sure it is worth doing. I might get more aggravated than helped.

Issues around my body came about today. I told her I was ugly and there is no fixing that. She was trying to tell me otherwise but it was falling on deaf ears. I can tell I really want to talk about this because I keep checking the internet and twitter for the past 1/2 hour. So I will just leave it as I am ugly and my therapist is fired because she thinks otherwise.