Why is this happening to me?

I’ve gotten into a circle of asking “why” lately.

As in, “Why the hell is this happening to me?”

I know. I know. It’s cliche.

But I just. I don’t get it. I don’t understand why this is happening to me.

I hate it so, so much.

Last night I did too much, and I was sitting in my car, and I still had to make the hour-and-a-half drive home from the area where I work, and I was in seriously excruciating pain, and it was just radiating throughout my right ribs, and I just wanted to die so, so much and all I could think was, “Why?”

Did I do something to deserve this? Was I an awful person at some point, and this was my punishment? Was I mean to someone and I didn’t realize it, and now I’m going through this as a result of that?

Am I paying for the sins of my youth? For all the stupid mistakes I made in my 20s?

Because if I am, I am truly, truly repentant.

People are always trying to find the good in this. I don’t blame them. I want to find good in evil too.

But I don’t see any good in this.

I play out crazy scenarios in my head where I start foundations and help millions of people with similar problems, but then I just think that even that is horrible because those people shouldn’t ever have to go through something like this. It is so, so awful.

Or, maybe I will sue the hospitals that have brushed me aside and ignored my cries for help and misdiagnosed me and I will get millions of dollars. But trust me, I would rather have my health any day of the week.

Last night, the pain was so horrible and I found myself thinking about driving off the road again, wishing I was dead. Praying for an end.

Someone actually told me recently that I shouldn’t kill myself, because if I commit suicide I’d go to hell and that would be worse than whatever I’m enduring now.

How horrible is that?

Do you think that’s true? I’m seriously in so much pain that I pray to die every day, and I can’t even kill myself because God would send me to hell to be tortured more? How awful is that?

Methodists don’t believe that. I used to attend a Methodist church, so I guess technically I don’t believe that either.

But I feel like I don’t know anything about God these days, so who knows.

Because what kind of God would allow this to happen to me? Or anyone? What kind of God would let someone suffer such horrible physical pain day after day after day? With no cause, no cure? No relief?

I had to fly to a business trip last week, and I looked out the plane at all the little houses on the ground, and all the cars on the road, and everything looked so tiny. And for the first time in my life I thought, “Maybe God isn’t really involved in all this. Maybe it’s all too much for Him. Maybe we are really just super selfish to believe that one creator could possibly be involved in all of our stupid little lives.”

I have to tell you, I feel pretty alone right now. Like I’m fighting this one without any help from up above.

And the idea that maybe I’m just a meaningless speck on this little blue planet is starting to make more and more sense.

I still pray before dinner. I still listen to Christian music.

I still want to believe so, so, so bad.

But I’m feeling pretty deserted at the moment.

And I just can’t understand why this is happening to me. Why this would happen to anyone.

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Some thoughts about my drugs.

I’m having a pretty good day.

And by that, I mean, a pretty good “pain” day. That’s how my whole life is defined now.

Yesterday sucked though.

Yesterday I was in agony.

I think maybe it was because my birthday on Friday and my boyfriend came out to visit, and my whole family took me to Olive Garden for dinner, and maybe it was all too much for me and I was paying for it on Saturday. Or, maybe it was the weather. Or maybe it was because the fan in the living room was blowing at some crazy angle.

Or maybe God was just p*ssed off at me.

Whatever the reason, the pain was awful, and so, I ended up taking extra hydrocodone.

I’m supposed to take “one every six hours,” but I’ve been taking the stuff for months now, and many, many times “one every six hours” has the same effect as an M&M would.

Sometimes that means I end up taking “one every four hours.” Other times that means I end up taking “two every six hours.”

But then, every couple of days, I have to sit down and count out how many days I have left until I can get a refill, and then count out how many pills I have left and divide the two and start rationing it out.

As of right now, I have about three pills a day to get me to my next refill.

I already know that’s not going to be enough.

Here’s the thing, it’s not that I used to judge people who used excessive amounts of painkillers in the past. It’s more that, before I got sick, I just never even thought about them.

But now. Now, I sit down on Sunday mornings, open the orange prescription bottle, dump out the pile of powdery white pills, and count out each individual one, and by extension calculate how much pain I will have to endure over the next three weeks.

I already know that there is no way I can get through the next three weeks with three pills a day.

My plan right now involves one part prayer, and two parts new doctor, who I see Sept. 10.

But, my experience with medical professionals thus far though has been, “Oh well.” As in, “You better find a way, because as long as you’re not bleeding out, it’s not our problem.”

But that’s the thing, it really, really does feel like someone is stabbing me with a butcher knife.

I have endured the worst pain in my entire life over the last six months.

Pain that makes me consider suicide on a daily basis. As in, I seriously plan out how I can kill myself. As in, I was seeing a psychiatrist who specializes in helping people who deal with chronic pain because I was fantasizing about driving my car off the road or swallowing all my pills before I went to bed at night.

I am in that much pain on a regular basis. And I am not exaggerating when I tell that you that there are things in this world worse than death.

But because I am not visually bleeding out, because my blood work comes back normal, because nothing ever shows up on any MRIs, I get 120 hydrocodone a month, and no more.

If someone rushed into the ER with a gushing stab wound, they would never be denied the pain relief they need.

Or maybe they would. But that would be tragic.

Because pain eats at you. It messes with your head. And it changes you so much faster than you think it will.

And there is a pill out there that can take my pain away. And I don’t want to take it so I can get high. I don’t want to take it so I can feel like I don’t have any troubles, or like I’m floating or whatever.

I want to take it so that I can get some relief from the metal claw digging into my ribs and maybe think clearly enough to see into tomorrow and remember that I do want to keep on living.

It’s so, so easy to sit on the outside of pain and judge people though.

It’s easy to say things like,

“Well, you can’t just depend on the pain pills, because you’ll end up building a up a tolerance to them, and then where will you be?”

Or,

“You need to take the number of pills the doctor tells you to take because that’s what the doctor says and that must be right and he must know exactly how many pills it will take to take your pain away without giving you a drug addiction.”

But that’s all bullsh*t when you’re in so much pain you want to kill yourself.

When you seriously want to end your life because you cannot handle the amount of agony that has engulfed your right ribs, the very last thing you give a crap about is the possibility that “two hydrocodone every six hours” instead of “one hydrocodone every six hours” might lead you to a life of pain pill addiction.

Or maybe you are different.

Maybe you would have a clear head and think differently in that situation, and maybe you would be able to endure hours and hours of the worst pain you’ve ever experienced, while a bottle of hydrocodone pills that could give you the relief you need were sitting right there on your dresser, and maybe you wouldn’t reach for them.

But I doubt it.

Pain Pill Bottles

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

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.

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