It's Saturday now. It's taken me two days to absorb the consultation at the Hackensack Pain Clinic, where after a long discussion about the details of my health history, I was told I would most likely be in pain for the rest of my life.
While I was told about treatments that might help--a change in medications, injection therapy (which most likely wouldn't work as this has gone on too long), and a type of brain surgery where a device is implanted to re-route the pain signals--the words that echo are the ones that sounded so final. This condition will never heal on its own, as what I'm experiencing now is something akin to phantom limb pain. The source of the pain is long gone; what is firing now are essentially memories of it.
The pain has been worsening in the last month or two, which has made me careless, as I've been smoking again, albeit one or two here and there. Still, it doesn't help matters any.
The doctor I saw was perhaps the most empathetic doctor I've ever seen. He gave me the bad news first and let me cry in a fit of shock at hearing words I wasn't expecting. I might have had an easier time hearing I was going to die than hearing I would be feeling this pain for the remaining decades of my life.
He actually made that point to me--that I was still a relatively young person who had a lot of life yet to live, and therefore something like this motor cortex stimulation (the brain...er...procedure) should be something seriously considered.
I woke up feeling just so sick this morning from all the pills I've been taking, and just so sad, as if a grey mist was circling my entire room. Of course, it might have been the dust build-up, as I can't bring myself to clean anything right now. My poor cat is acting as the dust mop. As she rolls around the floor, her fur picks up all kinds of debris. She knows something is up.
My friends in recovery are so concerned about the effect of this news on my addiction, but addiction right now seems like the least of my concerns. Whatever it takes to get me through the day is what I'll take, addiction be damned.
I'm trying my hardest to move forward. I saw a chiropractor yesterday, and will continue to see him for trigger point therapy; I've made an appointment with my old acupuncturist for Monday; and I've made an appointment with the neurosurgeon recommended by the pain doctor for Wednesday.
It's all a bit overwhelming to find myself at this level of pain again, and at this point of despondency. I suppose the question I'm grappling with now is not how much suffering one person can take, but how many times can they take it?
I'm trying to push myself out the door to work on my Christmas card project down at my studio, but I'd so much rather watch television and escape into lives and stories where things always work out.
I'm also trying hard not to feel sorry for myself, but all this trying in every direction is eroding me to the bone.
I just can't go to the recovery rooms anymore. While I'm happy for everyone that God is working in their lives, as many have truly found peace and contentment, I just can't be there right now and listen to it. Instead of finding understanding and fellowship there, I'm finding, well, nothing.
That said, I'm still working with my sponsor, who I love, as I do enjoy the Twelve Steps. But that's about as far as I can go with the recovery folks right now.
While these other therapies the pain doctor spoke of do present some hope, I just can't feel it for some reason. I'm so used to everything going wrong at every turn that I dare not get my hopes up for anything. While I said in a recent post that disappointment hasn't killed me yet, I fear there IS a limit as to how much one can bear.
Just like there are no absolute truths, there are limits to everything, and I've hit the limit of just about everything I can currently think of.
Getting out of this mess will be a miracle indeed.
Showing posts with label Hackensack Pain Center. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hackensack Pain Center. Show all posts
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Hope Springs Until Thursday
It's been a tough week and I haven't posted anything. I suppose I don't want to sound like a broken records of complaints and thoughts that the universe has diabolical plans for my existence.
But it's also been an interesting week. Over the weekend, I was surprisingly in a very low amount of pain and was faced strictly with the issues of addiction. When I'm alone in those very private moments, pill-free and pain-free (my version of pain-free anyway), I'm faced with the curious facts of my life and my history, and I find myself perplexed.
To be brief, I'm aware that I really don't know who I am without all the drama that accompanies the health and addiction issues. When things are quiet, I'm suddenly faced with, well...me. I have this wonderful life set up for myself, which I'm thankful for as I've been able to forge one despite the complications. But when the path before me is clear, I'm lost, as ironic as that sounds. I'm so used to pain and illness (physical or mental) that I'm actually frightened when things suddenly aren't so dramatic--when life beckons with potential.
Part of me fears that without drama, life will be boring, and it does make me wonder if my subconscious somehow creates problems in order to continue the pattern that has been so familiar to me since childhood.
Then again, it's hard to fathom how the subconscious could dig so deeply into biological pathologies--into my bone marrow fer chrissakes--and create such havoc.
Still, it's not lost on me that I expect disappointment in life, particularly when things are going well. Disappointment and betrayal have been constant themes, and the betrayal of my own body has been the unkindest cut of all.
I wrote at length in my journal this weekend, seeing so very clearly the sequence of events that continue to play themselves out in a way that's almost scripted; the players and circumstances change, but the results are always the same: I'm felled and crippled back to square one, constantly starting over only to be disappointed and restricted yet again by some new catastrophe.
I suppose this isn't anything extraordinary. People repititiously get into abusive relationships all the time; drugs and alcohol can be a constant theme for someone for decades; workaholics never see their folly until they're on their deathbeds. Clearly, I fall into a similar category, only my story is slightly different; I ride high with great expectations until something hits me so hard that I'm KO'd in that championship fight where I'm the odds-on favorite. This happens over and over and over.
Even though I've technically been a painkiller addict for four and a half years, I've buried my deepest self and escaped in other ways that have been just as profound, and just as damaging, throughout my adult life.
Physically, something was terribly wrong with my health starting in my late 20s and through my 30s (not diagnosed until my 40s), but that was the side story to my workaholism, which manifested as a music career. I was addicted to it wholeheartedly. I defined who I was by it, and I had no other life other than music for years. While I've never regretted, not even once, any song I've ever written (they seemed to come through me to the extent I almost don't feel responsible for them), being the singer/songwriter was extremely stressful for me as I just didn't feel worthy of the success that I knew the music could bring.
It was as though my own work was bigger than me, and I didn't have the self-esteem it took to shepherd my songs and performances to the success they deserved. But I sacrificed myself for them completely out of pure ambition, and that's the affliction any addict will tell you they identify with.
Despite discovering these new insights, I woke up yesterday morning with that familiar plaguing pain, which again so deeply disappointed me. Surely, when I had these insights the night before, I thought for sure they would be curative. But they weren't, and I'm now back on the pills.
The Pain Center at Hackensack Medical Center has agreed to offer me a consultation on Thursday. As I don't have PNH (talked about in an earlier email), I feel like this is my last hope for relief.
Earlier this evening, my spirits were descending into the logical place where most chronic pain patients with my condition find themselves--that the only logical place left to go is to check out for good, which would be the ultimate painkiller.
As soon as I had that thought (almost to the second), the Pain Center called saying they had an opening Thursday. It's not the first time something like this has happened--that some kind of intervention happened at exactly the moment I needed it, offering some glimmer of hope to keep me going for a few more days. It's like my guardian angel puts in an emergency report to God, saying, "We've got to do something or we're going to lose her."
I've no idea what to expect Thursday. While tonight hope might not be springing eternal, it's at least springing until Thursday.
*************************
But it's also been an interesting week. Over the weekend, I was surprisingly in a very low amount of pain and was faced strictly with the issues of addiction. When I'm alone in those very private moments, pill-free and pain-free (my version of pain-free anyway), I'm faced with the curious facts of my life and my history, and I find myself perplexed.
To be brief, I'm aware that I really don't know who I am without all the drama that accompanies the health and addiction issues. When things are quiet, I'm suddenly faced with, well...me. I have this wonderful life set up for myself, which I'm thankful for as I've been able to forge one despite the complications. But when the path before me is clear, I'm lost, as ironic as that sounds. I'm so used to pain and illness (physical or mental) that I'm actually frightened when things suddenly aren't so dramatic--when life beckons with potential.
Part of me fears that without drama, life will be boring, and it does make me wonder if my subconscious somehow creates problems in order to continue the pattern that has been so familiar to me since childhood.
Then again, it's hard to fathom how the subconscious could dig so deeply into biological pathologies--into my bone marrow fer chrissakes--and create such havoc.
Still, it's not lost on me that I expect disappointment in life, particularly when things are going well. Disappointment and betrayal have been constant themes, and the betrayal of my own body has been the unkindest cut of all.
I wrote at length in my journal this weekend, seeing so very clearly the sequence of events that continue to play themselves out in a way that's almost scripted; the players and circumstances change, but the results are always the same: I'm felled and crippled back to square one, constantly starting over only to be disappointed and restricted yet again by some new catastrophe.
I suppose this isn't anything extraordinary. People repititiously get into abusive relationships all the time; drugs and alcohol can be a constant theme for someone for decades; workaholics never see their folly until they're on their deathbeds. Clearly, I fall into a similar category, only my story is slightly different; I ride high with great expectations until something hits me so hard that I'm KO'd in that championship fight where I'm the odds-on favorite. This happens over and over and over.
Even though I've technically been a painkiller addict for four and a half years, I've buried my deepest self and escaped in other ways that have been just as profound, and just as damaging, throughout my adult life.
Physically, something was terribly wrong with my health starting in my late 20s and through my 30s (not diagnosed until my 40s), but that was the side story to my workaholism, which manifested as a music career. I was addicted to it wholeheartedly. I defined who I was by it, and I had no other life other than music for years. While I've never regretted, not even once, any song I've ever written (they seemed to come through me to the extent I almost don't feel responsible for them), being the singer/songwriter was extremely stressful for me as I just didn't feel worthy of the success that I knew the music could bring.
It was as though my own work was bigger than me, and I didn't have the self-esteem it took to shepherd my songs and performances to the success they deserved. But I sacrificed myself for them completely out of pure ambition, and that's the affliction any addict will tell you they identify with.
Despite discovering these new insights, I woke up yesterday morning with that familiar plaguing pain, which again so deeply disappointed me. Surely, when I had these insights the night before, I thought for sure they would be curative. But they weren't, and I'm now back on the pills.
The Pain Center at Hackensack Medical Center has agreed to offer me a consultation on Thursday. As I don't have PNH (talked about in an earlier email), I feel like this is my last hope for relief.
Earlier this evening, my spirits were descending into the logical place where most chronic pain patients with my condition find themselves--that the only logical place left to go is to check out for good, which would be the ultimate painkiller.
As soon as I had that thought (almost to the second), the Pain Center called saying they had an opening Thursday. It's not the first time something like this has happened--that some kind of intervention happened at exactly the moment I needed it, offering some glimmer of hope to keep me going for a few more days. It's like my guardian angel puts in an emergency report to God, saying, "We've got to do something or we're going to lose her."
I've no idea what to expect Thursday. While tonight hope might not be springing eternal, it's at least springing until Thursday.
*************************
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