pain – Page 12 – The only certainty is bad grammar

21 pills a day.

May 24, 2013 Crystal god, Life is hard sometimes, medium

I go back and forth between wanting to do every possible thing there is to do in the world and wanting to kill myself because the constant pain and the constant stream of pills is too much to bear.

I calculated it last weekend, and I’m on about 21 prescription pills a day. That’s 21 pills every single day just to survive. It’s 21 pills just to make it from sun up to sun down.

Every single day, I wake up in horrible pain because all my medications have worn off.

The hydrocodone and the gabapentin from the night before are no longer in my system, and my right rib hurts so bad that it’s hard to breath. It’s hard to even reach over and grab the bottles of pills and count them out and put them in my mouth and then grab the cup of water I put there the night before knowing I would need it and then take a gulp and swallow it all down.

I have to use every ounce of strength I have in my bones to get up and reach over and grab those pills every morning. And of course it doesn’t help that my brain is fighting off the fog of the sleeping pill I took the night before.

I hate it. I really hate it.

I want it all to be over so bad.

I don’t understand it, and the doctors don’t seem to either. The pain specialist and Loyola told me that he doesn’t know what caused it, he doesn’t know what will cure it and he’s pretty much just hoping it will go away on it’s own.

My primary care doctor told me to make an appointment at The Mayo Clinic, and after realizing that I just can not live my life by depending on two hydrocodone every four hours, I decided to take his advice. So I reached out to them this week, and then they said they would need a referral, which my primary care doctor gave them. But then they said they had to decide whether or not they would take my case.

Did you read that? They have to decide if they going to take my case or not. The Mayo Clinic is just about my last resort on this stupid blue planet and they could end up deciding that I am not worthy of their care.

They said they would tell me their decision in 10 days.

Whatever.

Just like everyone else, they think 10 days is a short amount of time, but they don’t seem to understand that for someone in chronic pain, 10 days feels like 10 years.

I’m so frustrated.

I hate dealing with this every day.

I know it could be worse. I know I need to pray and lean on God. But it’s just so hard to get up out of bed every single morning and reach over and grab those pills.

And then to have to take a bunch more four short hours later because my right ribs are screaming in agony.

I want to be healthy. I want to do all the things I used to do. I want to be awesome at both my jobs. I want to be an over achiever.

I want to be able to hop in a car and drive out to see my mom on a moment’s notice, or help my boyfriend clean out his office, or decorate the youth room or go to the grocery store anytime I want without having to calculate how much pain I’m going to be in at the first stoplight I hit.

I want to reach over and give my boyfriend a big hug without horrible pain radiating throughout my body. I want to cover a candy show without having to lay down behind the booth throughout the day because the pain is unbearable and I can no longer stand up. And I want to love being alive again.

And I can’t do any of those things right now. In fact, I can barely get out of bed.

I’m finally getting some sleep, so I don’t want to kill myself anymore

Published: May 3, 2013 / Updated: May 3, 2013 Crystal True thoughts on pain

So, sleep is freaking important.

And, I’m finally taking some medicine that is strong enough to overcome the stabbing pain in my right ribs and help me get some of it every night. YAY!

I mean, sure, whatever, I sleep for like 12 hours straight no matter how many alarms I set. But hey, at least I’m not suicidal anymore.

Seriously, it was those long nights awake in pain that were driving me down to Hell. When each long minute seemed like an hour and each night seemed like an eternity and the pain was at its worst and I was all alone.

That’s when I couldn’t think clearly.

That’s when I would lose all hope.

And it didn’t really get much better when the sun came up, because functioning on no sleep makes you insane. It just does.

So I would spend all day, still in horrible pain, dreading the night time, thinking about suicide. Laying on the floor in various places, because I was so tired and in so much pain that I couldn’t sit upright.

I remember laying on the floor in a dining room and being able to see into a bathroom where a jug of Drano sat on the floor. And I remember thinking, maybe I could just drink that and this whole thing would be over.

It was awful.

I kept clawing for help, reaching out in anyway I knew how. But I didn’t know what exactly it was that was making me crazy. And I assumed it was the horrible, daily pain. And I couldn’t seem to get help for that.

I did know I needed to get the sleep thing figured out though. I knew, for example, that it was at least a third of the reason I would cry for the first hour after I got to work everyday. (The other two-thirds being equal parts horrible stabbing pain, and a cocktail of medications screwing with my brian).

Unfortunately, Advil PM is just not strong enough for me right now, but thankfully, my doctor finally put me on 50 mg. of amitriptyline.

And I’m finally getting some sleep every single day.

And I’m finally thinking just a little bit more clearly.

The other good news about that medication, is that it’s also supposed to help with my pain. I mean, I don’t think it really has yet, but I’ve been told that’s going to happen, so YAY!

I also went to see another doctor yesterday who put me on an anti-viral medication, just in case this is shingles without a rash. And he paired it with a steroid pack so that it’s more effective and so that I can get better at hitting baseballs and eventually play for the Cubs.

If the anti-viral/steroid thing works, I could be cured before the huge candy show I have to cover for my job at the end of May. And let me just tell you that I really, really, really, really want to work that show with all of my sugar-coated heart.

If that doesn’t work, well, then I’m pretty much screwed. And I do not use the word screwed on here lightly.

Let’s just say visions of The Mayo Clinic are dancing in all my doctor’s brains right now. And I thought they would think that place was like some sort of drastic measure. But no. They were like, you should probably make an appointment now just to be safe. And I was like, Crap.

Anyway, I hope the anit-viral medication works.

It probably will.

And now that I’m getting enough sleep, even if it doesn’t, I won’t get so defeated that I’ll end up killing myself. So yay.

I’m still in pain. And I still don’t know why.

Published: April 25, 2013 / Updated: June 8, 2013 Crystal Life is hard sometimes, medium

I’m still in pain.

Like all the time.

I haven’t killed myself.

I figured I should a write a post saying that in case you’re the one reader here who’s not my friend in real life or on Facebook and you’re worried I ended it all based on my last post.

I haven’t.

I’m still in near constant pain though.

My only symptom seems to be horrible stabbing pain on my lower right ribs all the time and then it hurts when you even slightly touch anywhere on my right rib, including my right boob. (I can say “boob” right? Even though I’m a youth leader? Or is there a more Christian term for that part of my body? I can’t think of one).

Anyway, so they laid a small tube across my right chest during the MRI I had of my spine and my throat Monday and the tube was connected to something I could squeeze if I needed help. Within minutes I was crying from pain because it was too much pressure on my chest and I had to have them move it. And I can’t wear a stretchy tank tops because it’s too much pressure on my chest and it hurts like hell. (“Hell” is in the Bible. I can say that).

The pain has been very hard to deal with.

My friend told me yesterday that his dad used to say that nothing deteriorates your mental health faster than constant physical pain. He’s right.

If you seriously knew how often I genuinely considered killing myself over the last couple months you would be shocked. I’m shocked.

I’m trying to sleep a lot and I keep waiting for the next doctor’s appointment hoping that I will finally get some help, but it hasn’t happened yet.

Prayers are appreciated.

Basically, the MRI’s of my spine and my throat came back clear, which means I don’t have a pinched nerve. They don’t think it’s costochondritis because it doesn’t seem to respond to anti-inflammatories. They’ve given up on the idea of shingles. They have no idea why the intercostal nerve block didn’t work.

The pain specialist basically told me on Monday that it’s nerve pain. They don’t know what caused it. They probably will never know what caused it. They don’t know how to make it stop so they’re just going to keep trying different medications to see what works. And they have no idea how long it will last, but they’re kind of just hoping it will go away on its own.

I cry a lot. But crying hurts.

I tried to Google some things. But my official diagnosis of “intercostal neuralgia” is rare enough that not much comes up. It was like the first page of results that suggested marijuana might help.

I want it to stop. I want my life back. I want to be able to take a full shower without crying. I want to able to wear a regular bra again. I want to be able to drive into work without sobbing. I want to able to walk around a Wal-Mart without feeling like I’m going to die.

And I want to know why the heck I was fine on Feb. 2 and by Feb. 4 I was in the emergency room with stabbing pain in my right ribs and nobody can tell me what caused it.