Category: chronic physical pain

Reasons for Living vs. Reasons for Dying

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders, psychache, suicide, suicide attempt

Reasons for Living vs Reasons for Dying

This title is the name of an article written by David Jobes. It has to do with suicidality. The idea is to list your reasons for living and then your reasons for dying. The hope is that the reasons for living outweigh the reasons for dying.

I have been struggling a lot lately with my suicidality. Last week I wanted to do something very badly. I didn’t care what it was, as long as the end result was death. I texted my therapist and after I met my ungrateful father, she called me. We talked about my plan that was running around my head and the stressors that was leading me to think of suicide. It was a short phone call so we didn’t get into real specifics. I am sure that if we had time for a session, she would have asked what my reasons for living/dying were. It’s her way of gauging just how suicidal I am. Usually if I don’t have any reasons for living, my constriction is pretty high. Constriction is the narrowing of the senses. In this case, I only see suicide as a way out and I am damned to achieve it one way or another. I have been stressed over my birthday, not to mention Christmas and still trying to save money for the new year because I know I will have to pay for my prescriptions again. I also need to save some money so I can see my therapist sometime in the new year. But that is all future planning and it is stressing me out to no end. I don’t want to live to see my birthday in the 9 days. I was planning on ending things this Saturday so I made plans with my sisters for a birthday dinner with just the three of us. I still have Sunday to worry about. And the fact that what I have in mind, I have plenty of is not helping my case. I have three bottles of meds that I could use to try and end my life. But the problem is where I will do this. I can’t do it at home because I don’t want to be found by family members. And I know it will be traumatic to anyone that finds me, but I don’t care. I can’t stand living this hell that is supposedly called life. I am in so much pain lately that I can’t think. The new pain meds have me so sedated it’s not funny. And I think it’s messing up my bowels, too. Instead of being constipated, I am now having loose stools. That might be good for a “normal” person but not good with someone like me who has impaired function of their bowel due to cauda equina syndrome.

I made an appointment with my neurosurgeon the day before my birthday. It is going to be a wasted visit because there are no new images of my back. The latest scan was in 2007. So it’s just talking to him to update him on what is going on and then he will most likely order an MRI. I will then have to have another appointment to discuss the results. I am scared that I will have to have surgery again. I have no idea what that will mean. Or he might decide to pass me off to another neurosurgeon because he is a pedi doc and not an adult doc. I don’t know. I will be pissed off it I am again passed the buck to someone else.

I am also worried that I am not going to get the level of care from the new PCP in my doc’s office when he leaves and my days on opioids might be coming to an end. That is what is really freaking me out. I can’t manage my pain without these meds. It keeps me sane. But some doctors wrote an article in a prominent medical journal about how chronic pain patients get lumped with substance abuse disorders and other mental health issues and therefore “abuse” the meds they receive. Which is utter nonsense. I have never abused nor taken more than prescribed. I take what I need on a given day. Sure there might be some days that I need more medicine than others but that is rare. When I have a pain flare up, it might mean 6 pills instead of 4. Or if I am not in too much pain, it might mean just 2 pills a day. It varies because my pain is not constant all the time. It’s always a three on a scale of 1-10 at any given point but any activity (going up and down stairs, walking for lengths of time, standing for lengths of time, etc.) will increase my pain at night. At night is when my pain is at its worse. That is when my reasons for living go out the fucking window and my reasons for dying increase trifold. This is what it’s like living with chronic pain.

My therapist knows this. She has seen the worst of my suicidality to know when to intervene and when to let me vent. She tries hard to let me work it out on my own as I usually do. She guides me through these rough passages. But I don’t know if this time she has what it takes to see me through these waters. I am so drowning and I just feel like no one is hearing me scream in a crowded room. I am just so sad that my doctor is leaving, my psychiatrist is not available at the moment, and I have to face a neurosurgeon the day before I really don’t want to be alive.

Was Pain Free, at Least for a Little While

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

Was Pain Free, at least a little while

I did a few errands today as I had to pick up my prescriptions. Seems like every week I have something to pick up. Cost of being on a lot of meds I guess. Anyways, up until then, I was pain free. I started walking home and my thigh started aching. I didn’t know if I would be able to make it home. I took a shower this morning as I was up really early, like 0400 early. The hungry horrors struck as I had a big bowl of oatmeal and then an hour later I was still hungry. I had a pop tart. I was then hungry about a half hour later but decided to drink some water and take a nap. I didn’t sleep very well as my phone kept going off with messages and someone from Indiana keeps calling me. Every time I block the number, a new number appears. Fuckers. I only know one person from Indiana and I know it’s not her because her contact information would show up on my phone. It has to be a bill collector of some sort because they call several times a day. They NEVER leave a message so I don’t answer the phone.

It was good to be pain free for at least 12 hours or so. I guess my errand running flared up my leg. I guess the combination of my pain meds and nerve pain meds are keeping the pain in my ankle/foot at bay. That body part still is quiet so please don’t wake it. LOL. I am sure I will probably be in pain later when the meds wear off. The only pain I really had before going out was my back because I was taking a shower and standing for longer than ten minutes. It went away, luckily, when I rested. Surprisingly, it didn’t return while I was doing my errands and walking to the different places I had to go. It’s a mystery as to how it is set off. I think being barefoot has something to do with it. I am almost always barefoot around the house. Only time I wear slippers is when I know the kitchen floor is likely to be cold because it is cold out. Luckily we have been having warm weather for December so I can still be barefoot.

I started reading the next chapter in my book. I am surprised General McClellan is still in command. I forget the year he got fired and know his time is coming to a close because Lincoln’s cabinet is rounding a petition to have him fired or else. He hasn’t done a damn thing since the 7 days of War. The guy just annoys me, mostly because he refuses to include the president in his planning. To me, that is just disrespectful to the Commander in Chief. I hope to finish this book by the end of the week. I know I said I would write a review of the book but now I am not so sure. It turned out to be a better book than I thought it would be. I am learning more about the history than I thought I would. The author definitely researched this book very well.

Other than continue to read this book today, I am just going to rest my leg. I hope I don’t have to go up and down the stairs too much. My bowels seem to have exploded after I had my coffee so I hope my last trip to the bathroom was my last. I also hope that my hunger strikes don’t happen, though I still haven’t had lunch yet. Part of the reason I wanted to have coffee (besides the awful headache I woke with after my nap) was to curb my appetite. I still want egg and toast. I might have it later, if my mother doesn’t make anything for supper. We still have the load of fish she cooked. I don’t know who is going to eat it. I certainly am not going to eat reheated fish. Just the thought of it grosses me out. And the resulting smell it will leave in the kitchen does too.

It’s My Favorite Artist’s Birthday

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

It’s My Favorite Artist’s Birthday

It’s Taylor Swift’s birthday! She is 26. I wished her Happy Birthday on two different social media platforms today. She is one of my favorite artists. I can listen to her song, Love Story all day and not get tired of it. The same with her album 1989, which I am currently listening to.

It’s funny because when I was that age, I could have sworn I was 25 again. My 25th year was not very kind to me. I got the dreaded condition known as CES (cauda equina syndrome), and I didn’t know if I would ever walk again, unassisted. I felt like I lost a year because of this syndrome. And now, almost 15 years later, I might be facing it again.

My pain levels have dropped and my right leg is no longer hurting me. But I am not destined to have a pain free day because my left thigh has decided it is going to hurt today as well. I just cannot win. The pain isn’t too bad, it just hurts. I kind of wish I did something so I can say that I did such and such to make it hurt but I did nothing. I just was sitting on my bed, playing on my laptop when the twitching started and then it was sore the next day. Now this soreness continues. I am going to try and call my PCP’s office tomorrow and see if the neurosurgeon got back to my PCP. If not, I will call my neurosurgeon and see if I can make an appointment. I really like this guy. He is nice and very caring, which is rare in the surgeon world. My surgeon before him had the bedside manner of a peapod. I didn’t like him at all. But it was an emergency situation so I didn’t choose this moron. I didn’t choose the second one either (nice surgeon). My PCP got him because he was on call. I lucked out because he was rated top pediatric neurosurgeon in the country. I know I am no longer a pediatric patient but I still want him as my doc. We’ll see tomorrow. I just hope the guy isn’t on vacation.

I will never buy Stop and Shop protein bars again. They definitely were not what I was expecting. It was a granola bar with chocolate packed with nuts. I was looking for something like PowerBar Protein bars where you have chocolate and the inside is peanut butter (or some other protein packed filling). I felt like I was eating a candy bar. A Yodel would have been better and more filling. I am so disappointed.

I have to read my Lincoln book at some point today. I feel like if I don’t read a book every day, I am just wasting my time during the day. Even if I just read a few pages, that is all that I want to do. But I have a pile of books to read, especially on Kindle. I really want to finish American Gods so I can get back to Dostoevsky. I want to read Brothers Karamazov. I got a collection of Dostoevsky’s works for like 2.99 months ago and I haven’t touched the collection since then. Every one on Twitter was talking about American Gods so I got that book. The book is creepy and has a lot of sex scenes. It’s definitely not children’s material like I thought it was. I also have a two John Grisham books (one on Kindle, the other a hard cover) that I haven’t read. I was a very avid Grisham reader until I lost interest in books for a while. I thought he stopped writing but when I was at work, a friend of mine was reading a book that I didn’t read and I found a LOT of new books by him. The last book I remember reading from him was Skipping Christmas. That was a fun book. It was the first non-lawyer book that he wrote. I really enjoy his writing.

I haven’t done anything to do with hygiene today. I haven’t showered in days and I didn’t brush my teeth today. I was going to this morning but told myself I would do it “later”. “Later” still hasn’t come yet. My mother is taking a shower so I think she is going out tonight. I think it’s my cousin’s birthday. I never get invited and even if I did, I usually don’t go so it’s okay. I might take a shower later tonight before I go to bed.

Twitching-Good or Bad?

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

Twitching-Good or Bad?

Last night before settling down for bed, my right (good) leg started to twitch. It was having spasms and then my left leg joined in. I just decided to go to sleep rather than to read or write because it was so annoying me and laying down usually settles it down. I woke up about an hour ago because I was hot. After I took off my fuzzy socks and long sleeve t-shirt, my leg started doing its dance again. I am not like it because it is painful twitching, more so now than it was last night. I don’t know why this is happening. I usually never have symptoms in my right leg so something is definitely wrong. I took a nerve pain med, an Ativan, and some pain meds. I hope to be back to sleep soon.

Yesterday afternoon, I was talking with my sisters and we finally settled on where and what time we were going out for my birthday dinner. It will be next Saturday, the weekend before my birthday. I picked Chinese because I want Lo Mein. It’s been at least two years since I’ve had good Lo Mein. The restaurant that I usually order out from just has one good thing, General Gao. And I haven’t been able to find another restaurant in my area that delivers good food. The one good restaurant that did closed down about a year and a half ago.

As I have taken sleeping meds because of pain, I don’t expect to be doing much today. I really wanted to start the next chapter in my book last night but my niece wanted to watch one of her movies. She is so funny. Half way through, she asked me if I wanted a beard. I said yes but I was left with this goatee. I haven’t shaved in a month so it was prominent. Then she snuggled up next to me as we watched the movie. I didn’t tell her I wanted to be a boy and she didn’t make any gender references at all. She is too young to have that kind of conversation.

I guess it is good that I am resting today. Just hope it will give me energy to face this week. I so want the week to be over, like if tomorrow was the end of the week, so be it. I just really don’t want to deal with it. Two doctors appointments, one for me and the other for my father. Yuck. Then I have to go to my father’s for his pills. Three days in a row I will be out and about. So I need my rest now. Hopefully whatever if going on with my right leg will be gone by Tuesday.

I hate being in pain. It just isn’t fun. It takes a lot out of you and you don’t have to do much. I made breakfast and I am completely wiped out. All I had was a bowl of cereal. When I wake up later, I will make my breakfast burrito. But all I did was have cereal and then I washed the bowl and spoon. I am wiped out. It’s ridiculous. I know part of it is because I am hurting, but damn. I never in a million years have felt so wiped out after having a small meal. It just really sucks that I can’t do anything. It’s also very frustrating.

Just got the “Daily Post” from WordPress. I get it sometimes several times a day. Today’s topic is Hate to Love. I might write about it later today. For those bloggers that read my blog, it is good idea starter. A fellow blogger friend recommended it and I have been getting these emails every day. Today was the first time that I could write something that fits my blog.