Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Living in hell-but you are still on earth!!


I am at the point now, when I start a post I usually go through a series of emotions. Who in the hell wants to read about PAIN? Sometimes when I try to write, I become angry when I look back at my life, I think back to the day of my accident. Sometimes I just sit and look a my computer screen. Finally I turn it off, lay my head down and cry. It is becoming increasing harder to write about pain when you are suffering so much. I don't know what drives me anymore.

I don't seem to ever be satisfied with what I have written about Chronic Pain. Often I will see a story on T.V., but its always about the addict and those terrible narcotics. I watched a story on Fox news a couple of days ago. It was about school kids and and the majority of kids said they gained access to their parents prescription drugs. Something is wrong with this story. Where in the hell did their parents get so many opioid and opiate type drugs, that they could just leave them lying around in their medicine cabinets.

When I hear unsubstantiated stories like this from the news media, I go into a rage.
They don't know or understand because for whatever reason this is the position of all of the news media. As for as that goes the general public have the same attitude.
If you take any of the powerful drugs, you are a drug addict. That is simply not true. Unfortunately, it has to strike close to home or to the person themselves before they really understand what a pain epidemic we have in this country. It takes only a split second to go from a happy active person to a vegatible that relies on this powerful pain medication to sustain life.

There is not a day of my life that I don't feel like taking my 40 Cal. automatic pistol that is loaded with hollow point rounds and sticking it in my mouth. The only thing that has stopped me is my faith in Christ, the love of my family and last I really don't want to die. Everyone has a breaking where they can't stand it any more. The suicide rate in this country is 5 times higher for people in chronic pain versus people who are not. So Please, to all of the politicians, DEA, and doctors out there. There are over 75 million of us are suffering this agonizing pain 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All we want is a life, not to sit around getting adicted to drugs. We are citizens of this great country also and should be afforded the same right to life in peace as everyone else.

9 comments:

Surfer Jay said...

I’ll tell ya, I often feel as you do when it comes to writing and reading about pain. I live with severe chronic pain also. I have been contemplating starting a blog about my pain, but a couple things have prevented me. As I read too much on the net about other people and their pain, I notice that I become more depressed than I typically am. I have tried to follow a couple pain forums, but I simply can’t stand it, it is too dam depressing. And I live with pain! But there is something about reading about it all the time that causes more depression. There are now a handful of blogs, such as your, about people battling chronic pain in which I read, but I only pull them up once a week or less because of this.
Also, on the topic of writing about my pain. I keep journals. But I notice that the only time that writing in them about my pain that doesn’t cause me more depression is when my emotions have reached the boiling point and I need to get it all out. Then I will write for a few days. But if I try and write about my pain on a regular basis, it just makes me more depressed. Possibly because it forces me to dwell on the specifics about my pain more, rather than trying to occupy my time with things that help me forget about the pain.
So I agree with you, it is tough sometimes. But contradictory to all of this. I have to say that it is comforting to know that other people suffer as I do! It is sometimes fun, informative and good to read other peoples trials about pain. So keep on trucken.

Anonymous said...

I am so relieved I found your blog. I recently started a blog about living with chronic pain, and being undiagnosed for 3 years. We have been to a ton of doctors and tried at least 5 medicines from each. I've had MRIs and EMG and blood tests but nothing explains it. It is hard for me to get up for school everyday. I am a straight A student, yet my school wanted to take away my credits last year because I missed more than the 7 days a semester. It's not my fault I can't walk sometimes. Thankfully I made it to 9th grade and have more option as far as schooling goes (I am talking 5/7 classes online at home). Sometimes I just sit in my room and cry because I know that nobody knows what to do, nothing helps, and I can't do simple things a 14 year-old should do. I loved soccer. That has been gone since 5th grade. I can't go to Six Flags. I would love to be able to do the Alzheimer's Memory Wal in September in memory of my great-grandma, but I am going to be stuck coordinating for someone else to take over because I can't. I can't do the simplest things sometimes. As recently as today I fell back into a chair when I tried to get up because my leg had a shot of pain and weakness all of a sudden. I am glad there is someone I can talk to about it who is living with the same thing I am.

Bella said...

I'm so glad I found your blog! It's nice to know I'm not along in my ongoing pain.

Anonymous said...

Yo, what's going on here? Did you just crawl outta my life or what? Man, when I started reading your blog I had to look at mine. We have the same mindset on what this chronic pain is and what it does. I need to get your email and phone number and chat with you. I have a proposal that you might just be interested in that might be a boone to all of us chronic pain sufferers.

My name is Vinicent Holland. Call me Vini. I go by my sarcastic moniker Chronic Pain Hero and I got site and of course blogs that I use to get out my view on what chronic pain is doing to me.

Anywho, we should talk. This blog you got is great. Direct and full of relatable information and experiences.

Respectfully
Vini Holland aka Chronic Pain Hero
www.vinicent-d-holland.4t.com
www.vinholglobal.com
hollandwebsite@comcast.net
VinHol Global Enterprises LLC

inurdreams said...

I have a sister who suffers from chronic pain and I have advocated for her for the last 13 years. She is very depressed and is going downhill fast because of unrelenting pain. The only people who hang out with her are the addicts, and they steal her meds all the time, but she just puts up with it because she is so lonely. No one wants to hang around a person who is in pain all the time.

She is on heavy duty medications - methadone and oxycodone - along with anti-anxiety meds and anti-depressants. I want to scream at people all the time - "It is not a character flaw - she did not choose to become dependent - it is a physical condition". It is very clearly visible that she is disabled and in pain. And it makes people very uncomfortable.

We didn't know about methadone when she went on it in 1997. My sister and I talked her into it because the doctors were giving us such a hard time about the percocet. They wouldn't listen that she wasn't getting pain relief at the low dose they had her on, and we were frantic. They offered us the methadone, and like a person coming out of the desert, it looked like a swimming pool!

What we didn't know then, we sure as hell know now. It's not so much the drug, as the stigma that goes with it. We were so naive, so vulnerable. But I am proud to say that she has stuck to her guns, hasn't increased her dose in over 5 years and has accepted that she will be on it for the rest of her life.

As you have said in your posts, it is unbearable to live with the pain. Even on the meds, she still has more bad days than good. She does not believe in suicide, but I fear every day that she will give up and let go of life. She is only 48, has been in chronic pain since her auto accident at 19.

I really wish more people would pay heed to your words when you say "It only takes a split second to go from happy active person to a vegetable that relies on [this] powerful medication to sustain life".

If only they knew....and I pray to God they never find out.

God Bless You, for writing this blog and for all you have been through.

You are in my thoughts and I am wishing you and your family all the best this holiday and a wonderful New Year.

Bonnie
http://almostbutnocigar.blogspot.com

P.S. I hope it is alright that I added a link to your post on my blog.

Anonymous said...

I shed tears reading this.
I can feel the frustration and upset that went into this post.

keithincapitola said...

I'm in the same boat that everyone else here is in. I've had 3 back surgeries. The second one they fused 3 vertebras together. But a while later on I got a staff infection around the six screws they put in my spine. Six 2 1/2 " long and 1/4' thick. I so called doctor I was seeing at first would look at my back and said "it was a little swollen". Then months later when I'd go back into get more and stronger pain meds I told him that now I had a huge SQUARE lump on my back. But he didn't look at it. He was convicted that I was "just looking for pain meds" is what he wrote in his report. After 3 months and trys to get him to look at it I went to another doctor. I would have gone before but I was working 7 days a week 8-12 hours a day to built a small house in the back yard to move into. But 3 doctors later they figured out it was a staff infection. 10 doctors said that they have never seen anything like it before. It was really 12"x12" and an 1" thick. 5 doctors told me that it should have killed me. But it left me in chronic pain. I'm seeing a pain doctor (physiatrist). I tried to cut down on the pain medication, I don't like it. But it hurt so bad that I'd have to go back and she'd up the dosage to where I could live with the pain. The last time I was in there I was trying to tell her that the pain was like torture and it was just as much mental as physical. She told me that a lot of her patients use the pain meds for an anti-depressants. I wasn't saying that or even suggesting that. She then told me that because of that, she'd give me only so many months more and then I'd have to do "something else"? I knew several people that did something else, and committed suicide. The doctors are so afraid of the DEA, and the new laws about "The Pain Patients Bill of Rights" doesn't mean anything. The government passes tha law and then put law enforement officers in chare of looking after people tha abuse the law, and not other doctors.
I'd like to know how many people reading this feel the same way. I was trying to tell her taht it is just like when they take a POW and use physical pain to torture them to get them to talk. Why? Because after months or years they can't take the pain any more and it breaks them mentally. That's what I was trying to tell her, but about every other time I see her I get half way through with what I'm tring to tell her and she hears things from other patients and jumps to the conclusion that she "knows what I'm going to say" because she's heard it so many tmes before. And the next time I come in she tells me that I told her somethingI didn't, but because she has it writen down it must be true. Please leave a message here if you feel that your pain is causing you mental torment that's as bad as the physical pain. So I know it isn't just me. Thanks

Rose said...

I too have been in chronic pain and had unsuccessful back surgery that left me crying in agony afterwards. It's growing into an epidemic and I would think that the billions being spent on treatment would bring breakthroughs not breakdowns!
Enough is enough. Please read "The Divided Mind" by John Sarno it will open your eyes because the root cause once fixed will heal the chronic pain symptoms. Good luck
http://www.lowerbackpainblog.com
PS I am not an affiliate for Sarno just concerned that a great cure is unknown and misunderstood because it's FREE and quite easy to administer once you understand the concepts. It took me 6 months in all.

Rose said...

P.S. it was my faith in Jesus and his healing power and love and my family that got me through each pain filled day also. A very holy person who suffered a lot once said she broke her pain down into minutes she accepted 1 minute of pain, then 2 minutes, then 10 minutes and could build upto acceptance of an hour at a time. This worked wonders for my mood levels and I felt more peace and more joy. Living in the present moment and suffering moment by moment was key.