Pain

The state of being in mind-numbing pain is not fun. It is is horrendous, to say the least. I have several discs that are ruptured in my back, and the last x-ray I saw, the remnants were paper thin. That was over a year ago. I also have a pinched nerve in my back that causes exquisite pain. On top of those pains, my vertebrae is littered with enough bone spurs to make a rocky road look smooth. But that is just my back.

I have a torn meniscus in my right knee. Both knees are extremely arthritic, including bone spurs on the knee cap and underneath the knee cap. I am knot-kneed, which means that all the wear and tear occurs along a v intersection within my knee joints. This is not a pleasant feeling of decay. I need to have both knees replaced, and the doctors told me 5 years ago that I had to be fifty years old before they would do the knee surgery. Now that I'm 50, they want me to wait until I'm 55. That stinks because I would really like to be much more active with my three sons before they reach adulthood.

My feet feel like I'm walking on shards of glass all the time. I have lots of problems with my feet. First, I have tarsal tunnel in both feet- which is the same fraying of the tendon as carpal tunnel- except in my feet. Fun. Then I have neuromas (i?) in both feet. Both peds are filled with arthritis- bone spurs inside and out. I have to wear special shoes with inserts (not cheap ones, either). I have to sit with my feet up to keep the edema down (swelling).

BTW- I had carpal tunnel in both hands; and had to have the surgery several years ago.

Then comes my hands and shoulders- both hot spots of pain. The arthritis in both hands is getting worse. That makes writing-my only real passion in life- just a little bit more uncomfortable each time.

And if this isn't enough pain to make the average person wince in pain just to hear about how much pain I have going on all the time, to top it all off, I have Fibromyalgia. The dictionary doesn't list Fibromyalgia at the time of this printing because it is a fairly new disease. So I'll save you the trouble of looking it up: Fibromyalgia is a disease that there is no cure for, and it racks the body with severe pain, punching it up especially around all the joints and any pressure points. It makes average depression so deep as to be almost unbearable. Fibromyalgia won't let you sleep-even with pills. The meds you take for the depression won't let you stay awake during the day. It is truly a nightmare that I can't wake from. ( I just did 'spellcheck' and it outlined 'Fibromyalgia' in yellow- with the words "No suggestions" because it's not in the dictionary yet.)

The headaches last for days. Weather makes everything worse. Cold, rain, snow and even far-away hurricanes can cause unexplained pain on a bright sunny day here in the Midwest.

Stress, of course, makes both the pain and depression much worse.

I don't know why I started to write about all my problems- except that it may make me feel better to get it all off my chest. I am in sooo much pain today that I am just trying to make it through the day, with my sanity still in tact.

If I can make it through the next 2 days, I might be able to make it. Tomorrow I have an appointment to get multiple injections in my spine. Hopefully this will soothe the raging pinched nerve screaming in my back. Then I hope the Doc proceeds with the other injection to quell the pain in the discs with steroids and pain killer cocktail.

On Thursday, I will be going to my other pain doctor, who will be injecting a soothing cocktail of steroids and pain killers directly into the joint(bone) of both knees.

I hope I didn't mislead you with the 'soothing' part. No, make no mistake about it, these injections hurt like a MF. I find it hard to describe the magnitude of concentrated pain that the 4 inch needles can produce when inserted directly into the bone of my joints or spine. And you have to remain perfectly still so as not to be paralysed. Small details, really.

The injection sites hurt and remain sore for several days. It also takes several days for the 'cocktail' to work into the entire joint or spine, before the 'soothing' takes place. And then it's no picnic- I still have to take a boat load of pills to make it through the day. It just makes the mind numbing pain a tad more bearable- so that I'm able to do ( and write) other things, besides what horrible pain I'm experiencing.

I want to go out and work in my garden. I want to go to my son's soccer game tonight. I want to go shopping. I want to go biking. I could go on and on, but you get the gist.

I dream about having just one full day without pain. Is that too much to ask?

Sheila