My Life With Medicine – The Chronic Pain Truth

When you’re living with chronic pain, medicine is a part of your life. The year is filled with doctor visits, follow-ups, tests, prescriptions and refills. The medicine helps relieve some of the pain. That sharp pain, the pain that takes your breath away – and not like in the fairy tale books. This is the type of pain that stops you in your tracks and makes you close your eyes in pain and at times brings on those silent tears. The ones that no one other than you knows about. You’re unable speak and find yourself closing your hand in a fist – from the pain. After a few minutes, that intense pain is gone. And you think, “I’ll take my medicine to help me get through the next one.” And I do.

I take the concoction that the doctor thinks will truly work this time! He say’s, “take these two in the morning, this one for nausea, this one for vertigo and these 2 at night.” I see him on my next visit and tell him, it’s a go! It’s working, the combination that we’re trying is working!

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And because nothing is perfect, nothing comes without a ‘cost,’ I tell him about my side effects. The medicine although helping relieve the pain, discomfort, aches and the daily needle like pain, the side effects take time to accept. All medicine have side effects and that’s the truth. And my medicine, are for the most part, muscle relaxers. If you recall, what I have is all in the nervous system – the brain and spinal cord. These muscle relaxers cause a ‘sedation’ type effect on your body. It brings on fatigue and weakness, which in turn cause me to feel extremely tired.

It’s a feeling of having not had slept in a long time. That sleep that causes you to close your eyes while speaking to someone – oh but you don’t intend to be rude! You just can’t help it! And you sleep and sleep and sleep. Because the sleep is what removes you from the pain and for short periods of time, you’re taken to a place where you are in pain no more.

In turn for taking my prescription medicine …

I feel left out,

Alone and afraid,

Like a bad mom, wife,

Like I can’t keep up with life or my kids.

It’s caused me to …

lose friendships,

give up friendships,

cancel, and

feel frustrated.

Yes, it’s true! You take something on to then give up others. You give up the life you once knew, for the life that’s been handed. The new cards. The new circumstance. The life with chronic pain.

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Note To Self For This New Year – 2020

How incredible that I’ve made it this far?! I want to start the month off by writing a few truths to myself and what version of me I want to be moving forward.

In living with chronic pain there are always different feelings, one minute I’m tired, the next I’m happy, excited, the next I’m drained and filled with intense physical pain. So, as much as I can’t control nor predict how I’ll be feeling physically, I want to be a little more positive moving forward. It can be draining to feel as if I’m a walking ‘Debby Downer.’ Or am I just imagining that?! Perhaps I am – I tend to be a little dramatic.

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Note to self for this new year – 2020. Be honest with self.

+ Stop feeling sorry for your illness. Things happen, trust in Him that all will be well.

+ Yes. You are sick. Accept it.

+ No one’s judging you for your illness. They just don’t know better.

+ Take your medication, including your vitamins, they’re good for you. Less pain equals less mood swings.

+ Schedule your doctors appointments. It is for your well being. If not for you, for your family.

+ Take charge of your life.

+ Don’t make commitments. You can’t keep them. Not because you don’t want to, but because you can’t predict how you will feel.

+ Your children will admire your strength and determination to keep going – despite it all.

+ Stop wanting people to understand your illness. They don’t. And they won’t. And that’s OK.

+ People don’t understand the energy that it takes for you to be open to ‘doing’ things – accepting visitors etc. It’s OK.

+ Put your energy into those who matter.

+ Be patient. Patience will get you far.

+ Be loving with yourself. Love yourself. Your body will love you for it. The weight gain is minuscule to what really matters. THYROID equals your weight gain. No one is entitled nor deserves to know this. You do. And that’s enough.

+ You’re sick. Accept it. Once you do, you’ll see life differently and only then, will you truly begin to live.

I’m sure there are one or two things that may have slipped my mind. But for now, this is a good start. These truths are not to demean or shame myself, they’re to help me see who I am and who I’d like to be moving forward.

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Reblog Wednesday: Lies I Tell Myself: IV — chiariconversations

This weeks ‘Reblog Wednesday’ has come at the perfect time, and it’s by none other than Michelle over at Chiari Conversations. She’s a fellow Chiarian and her vulnerability and honesty is like breathing fresh air each time I read her posts. If you have neurological issues, or are a fellow Chiarian yourself, please follow her journey along!

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And I say it comes at the perfect time because I have not been quite myself, the body pains have increased, my left leg and foot have been getting increasingly numb and the vertigo, well, the vertigo is a pain in the rear end! I’m going on 6 years since my brain surgery for my Chiari Malformation and every day feels much like I’m going through a slow death – only I’m still here and my brain is being squished by the minute. The stabbing pain behind my neck doesn’t subside and what seems to be the never ending hospital / doctor visits can make me feel much like an elderly than a young mom.  As Michelle clearly states, a few years ago I really don’t know how I could have handled these constant headaches. It’s not your casual headache, ‘you missed a meal, you are a little stressed’ kind of head ache – no my dearest friend and reader, this is a, run and close the blinds, turn off the lights, turn off the volume to everything, including the neighbors barking dog and let’s hibernate for say, a few weeks – kind of headache! The one where you momentary just wish to be a vampire, because lets face it, I wish the world around me was pitch dark, complete darkness.

If you have Chiari Malformation or not, maybe you are dealing other health issues and can relate …

The feelings of wanting to feel like wanting to enjoy life / social gathering without having the next day or even weeks be filled with even more pain and misery. Yes!

The feeling of not wanting to be told ‘you’re strong’ but know that I’d rather lay in bed in a fetal position because I can’t take the pain. Yes! 

The wanting to go to the store and not have to worry about my left leg – body, being overstimulated and being at risk of falling in public. Yes! 

The wanting to go out to a public place, say, church, etc. and just setting it on mute because the chatter and noise level is too loud for my brain to handle. Yes!

The need to want to be ‘able’ and not ‘unable.’ Yes! 

The feeling of constantly needing help, because lets face it, I can’t do it all – literally. Yes!

The need to want to tell scream people to ‘get.to.the.point’ because conversations overstimulate my brain. Yes! 

The wanting to stop being told, ‘but you look good’ because I know that if I looked like how I felt, I’d scare even my own offspring. Yes! and Yes!

What are some of your new normal’s?

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It can be difficult to really KNOW whether the pain is normal or not when dealing with neurological issues. It doesn’t help that pain is personal even in the temporal sense. Five years ago, I WOULD NOT have been able to handle this level of constant headache. I would have thought I was dying. Today, […]

via Lies I Tell Myself: IV — chiariconversations

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