Category: physical pain

depression and mobility

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, mood disorders, physical pain, psychache, suicide

This morning started out ok until my grumpy sister started yelling at everything. I ducked out of there before things started flying. Hehehe

I know I should be writing in my “book” but I think I will take a break today. I spent almost four hours on it yesterday and it is now up to eighteen pages. I figure I will add to it a little bit every day but it stirs up emotions and I think that is why I am frustrated right now. It is difficult writing about your struggles with suicide without feeling it when you are still struggling with it. Last night I was in bad shape. I started thinking that I would be better off dead and just wanted to die. I just don’t think I have a purpose and feel like I am just a burden on my family because I am no longer working. I am collecting a social security check and it bothers me that this how my life is right now. I can barely deal with any stress anymore without getting psychotic. I can barely walk around the block without pain. The depression is so crippling me that some days I don’t leave the house. It’s very isolating. I try to go out and even just riding the buses takes so much energy.

Today I just realized I have not left the house since Thursday. I might go out today and go to the store just to take a walk. Maybe I will just buy something that will make me feel better. A little retail therapy never hurt anyone before. Or maybe I will take the bus to Clarendon Hill and head towards Arlington. I have not ridden the buses in a long time. As long as I have my music, I should be ok.

As I’m writing this, I am listening to Linkin Park. I love this group. It always is the right music to listen to when I am in an irritable, frustrated mood. That is the type of mood I am in right now. I am also worried about my foot. I had put a sock on my foot last night because it got wicked cold and this morning the sock was still on, which is unusual as I don’t usually keep the socks on while sleeping. My foot is still some what cold as I can feel it through the sock but the sock is also irritating me. I know that if I take it off I risk angering my foot and it retaliating by causing me pain. Nerve damage sucks. I really hate this type of pain than any other because there is nothing I can do about it. The other night I had zingers, electric type of shock pains in my big toe. It was so annoying. I couldn’t sleep because as soon as I started to relax, the zingers would start, jolting my foot and waking me up. Why do I have this nerve damage? Because of something called Cauda Equina Syndrome (CES). A disc crushed my nerves in my back and left me with nerve damage in my left leg, foot, ankle, and bowels/bladder. But the damage is better than it once was. It take a long time to recover. I have had my last surgery almost seven years ago. This was the second time that I got CES. The first time was the real damage with the drop foot that I still have and also foot weakness. Because of this weakness, I get fatigued in my foot very easily and this causes me to walk improperly. Walking improperly results in the pain that I have been experiencing. And it is different every time it flairs up. I can have a barbed wire type of feeling, a pounding in my foot like someone is using a hammer to crush my toes, to feeling like my toes are in a vise.

This pain also contributes to the depression and not wanting to walk because it brings me pain. But I try to do what I can to get out of the house without too much difficulty. I try not to stand too long while waiting for the bus. I also always try and get a seat whenever possible rather than standing because the pressure and worry of the bus stopping short is always there. When I take the train, I do the same thing.

I didn’t go out again today. I decided to cook and watch the baseball game. I made a spicy tomato sauce, which I didn’t intend to make. While I was pouring a little bit of crushed red pepper, the top came off and I dumped half the container in the pot. I now have a spicy sauce. If I had some beans I could make a chili out of it.

And the closing pitcher for the Sox decides to blow the no hitter. FUCK! I so wanted this no hitter, even though it is still Spring training. Today was media day and the last media speaker SUCKS. Remdawg and Don are not even reporting the game, just letting this soft-spoken speaker speak while the game is playing. I am falling asleep.

notebook from the past

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

I am wretched and know not why. I am healthy yet I am ill. There is no diagnostic test to tell where the pain is from yet I want to die from it. I fear that it will kill me. A hundred years ago I’d be locked away in an asylum. This day and age I’m forced to be a functional person with no symptoms of a psychic malady.

Pain that is so bad that nothing can relieve it. Almost as if a pericardial centesis is the only way to drain the pain out but as there is no effusion it will be dry.

This is something that I wrote twelve years ago. I can remember what that pain felt like and wanting to die. It was terrible thing to live through. I talk about the effusion because my heart was aching so much it killed me and I couldn’t breathe.
Quote from Noonday Demon: “if everyone has the capacity for some measure of depression under some circumstances everyone also has the capacity to fight depression to some degree under some circumstances. Often the fight takes the form of seeking out the treatments that will be most effective in battle. It involves making the most of the life you have between your most severe episodes. Some horrendously symptom ridden people are able to achieve real success in life; and some people are utterly destroyed by the mildest forms of the illness”—Andrew Solomon
Merchant of Venice: It wearies me, you say it wearies you but how I caught it. Found it, or came by it, what stuff tis made of, whereof it is born, I am to learn. And such a want-wit sadness makes of me that I have much ado to know myself—Shakespeare

I found these quotes in a journal from 2001. It’s an old notebook of my excerpts from books and other things. I had carried it around with me all this time. Today I was going to write excerpts from Night Falls Fast by Kay Redfield Jamison but I was too tired after I had my lunch. The notebook is worn thin by use. It is probably the only notebook that I still refer to every day. I have my favorite Edgar Allen Poe letter that I copy into every journal that I own. The “I am wretched and know not why” is from there. If you ever read touched with fire, you will understand what it is like living with bipolar disorder and depression and how it relates to creativity. It really is a great book.

Today I am sidelined with pain in my ankle and a migraine that started out this morning. I have been trying to take a nap for the past few hours but I have this restlessness to do something, to write that I can’t quite quell. I chock it up to having coffee today at an early hour. I have been up since about 9 which is my normal time for waking up but I still wanted to sleep more. If you count daylight savings it really was 8 that I woke up at. I have this energy but I don’t know what to do so I went out and now my ankle is thanking me kindly in return by hurting me. I had groceries delivered today, some stuff I forgot from my previous order. I got my steaks that I have been dreaming about for weeks but never bought. I usually don’t crave meat but I haven’t had any other than chicken and fish in quite some time, possibly as far back as the summer!

So to say that I am a little tired is on the money. I also had therapy today that made me think about what I am doing or going to do with my writing for the next few days. I also talked about my writing with my co-conspirator. We have decided to write five days a week so we can have two days off. I am not sure I can do that with my blog as I like writing on it every day but I can take off a day here and there. My next writing assignment that I am contemplating has to do with CES, Cauda Equina Syndrome. I have been meaning to write about it for some time but have backed off due to the embarrassing nature of the content. I still haven’t written much beyond the title of the article. Maybe tomorrow I can write more.

just the back

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

I had another easy day today. I didn’t go out despite the temperature being higher than it has the past few days. I did get some work done with my book. But now I feel downhearted. I remember what it was like getting diagnosed with my condition and not knowing if I was going to walk again. I took therapy into my own hands and relearned to walk again on my own with a little bit of help from this therapist and that. It wasn’t until my second diagnosis that I really decided I was going to be the ones making the call to walk again. I have learned to walk three time in my life and hopefully the third time was the last time.

I’m also downhearted because I keep thinking of my ex and what she is up to. But I know it would be too painful for both of us to open a line of communication again. I also been thinking of my other ex as I just wrote about her in my book. I’m not sure if that part is going to stay in it or not but for now it’s there.

I know I should not be so hard on myself for things that happened that weren’t my fault but I do still blame myself for things. I should have stopped seeing the chiropractor when I started to feel better. I should have stopped seeing my ex the minute she didn’t want to be around me because I was loud (second ex). And I should have killed myself in 2005 so I wouldn’t have had to face the last few years of being in horrific pain. Nobody understands what it is like to be in chronic physical pain unless they have gone through it themselves. And no one can tell me that the pain can’t be that bad to want to kill myself because I don’t have cancer. I wish it was cancer because then I know it would be terminal and there would be an end to the pain.

It’s like with the back pain. Everyone asks me how’s the back since I have had surgery. They don’t ask about my leg, foot, ankle, bowels, bladder. Just the back. As if that one thing determines everything else in your life. I know the reason for my foot, ankle, bowels, and bladder problems have to do with my back but the fact is that they don’t think the two are connected. And that hurts. It’s like my leg doesn’t matter only my back. I didn’t get operated on my leg. Just the back.

Dreaming about pain

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

Dreaming about being in pain

Today I woke up at 05:30 after having a dream that my foot exploded into pain. I woke up to find that I was indeed in pain. I had somehow rolled onto my back (I am usually a side sleeper) and crossed my feet, which my bad foot didn’t like. I took a couple of pain pills and then tried to go back to sleep but I couldn’t. The pain just wouldn’t ease up until the meds kicked. By then I became fully awake and have been up the past several hours. I am starting to get cranky to the point of yelling at my deaf mother for having the TV too loud. I just took some more pain meds and some Ativan to try and take a nap.

I had therapy again today. This time I just bitched about my horrible day yesterday and we talked a little about yesterday being the anniversary of why I got into therapy to begin with: my father. I don’t like him anymore today than I did 22 years ago. He is the source of my problems and last night even though I was struggling, I really wanted to cut like I did when this whole thing started. I won’t go into detail about it because I am just too tired to stir up memories of that night. Actually today is the day I first started therapy 22 yrs ago. But it was the events on the 5th and 6th that lead up to it and me wanting to kill myself. Funny how chronic pain changes you. 22 years ago I wanted to die because my father was and still is an asshole and today I want to die because I am in chronic pain, physically and mentally. I know that I never will have a dad though I still call him that. To me he is just a sperm donor. The love I once had for him has been long gone and it isn’t coming back.

The weather certainly has got me still in pain. My spine is still aching and my thigh is just in nerve pain hell for some reason. I don’t know why. I haven’t had this type of nerve pain for at least a year or two. I hope that it doesn’t indicate that my scar tissue has grown more on my nerve root. I am always fearful of that but then the docs will just chock it up to me being overweight and the weight is compressing my nerves. I had a conversation with a doc that said that even if I was normal weight or sub-normal weight I still would have the same back problems. Being normal weight or less than what I am now is not going to really change the fact that I have had four surgeries at two different levels and that I have a deteriorating spine.

Despite being up early, I was not so productive today. I had to cancel my eye appointment because there was no way I was walking on icy sidewalks and risk spraining an ankle in this weather. I had breakfast and lunch and my coffee. I just got my tribute blend coffee from Starbucks in the K-cups for the Keurig. I love this coffee. It is such a very full bodied coffee that just tastes so good. I just wish it would keep me from being foggy brained but I think the meds are kicking in…

On another note before I take a nap, I finally found my missing journal. When I changed the sheets the other night I placed it somewhere and forgot where I put it. I knew it was somewhere in my room because why would I take it out. But it got buried in a hamper so I didn’t see it right away. I haven’t written in three days. That is a long stretch for me as I usually write every night before going to bed. It helps to relax me. Which is probably why I have been so worked up the past few days. I started writing this morning and probably will write another entry before bed. I am so glad I found it because I really like writing on paper more than on the computer. Just an FYI, there was an article I read a few days ago that said that people read slower on electronic devices than a hard copy paper. I found that interesting that the brain has to slow down to catch up with electronics than it does with say a book. But then, that is how most of us grew up with, a book and paper. I find that I have to print out PDF’s because 1) I can’t highlight the information I am reading on a computer screen and 2) I like to keep the hard copy just in case the computer malfunctions or key drive gets lost.