I'm sitting here today trying to make sense of what's happening to me. I'm angry, so damn angry it makes me want to scream.
My jaw hurts from clenching my teeth so hard. My stomach hurts from too much pain medication and my head is ready to implode. Day after day, week after week and month after month I try to deal with this constant, tooth rattling pain. And no matter how positive I try to be there comes a day when enough is enough and it can't be taken in stride any longer.
I'm there now.
My anger wafts around the house in my wake and taints everyone who encounters it. My resilience is at rock bottom. Brave? No I'm not brave. I'm sick and tired of enduring and putting those I love through the wringer day after day as I try to endure. As I try to keep smiling. I'm sick and tired of barely being able to function. Of dealing with one body catastrophe just in time for the next one to hit.
Eight years ago I overcame a cancer that was predicted to kill me. During my treatment I nearly died twice. I now have severe osteoporosis. In the past 6 years I've broken a toe, a foot, 3 ribs and a year and a half ago I suffered a crush fracture in my spine.
Currently I have 3 dislocated ribs, possibly a fourth from last night, and a trapped nerve in my spine. The nerve pain travels from my right shoulder and arm, down my rib cage to my right hip and down the front of my right thigh. Shoulder to knee. Putting any weight on my right leg makes my whole side burn. The dislocated ribs on the left, just to balance things out, make it hurt to cough, to laugh, to bend and even to breathe.
A good friend once asked me who I killed in a previous life to deserve the challenges I've been dealt in this one? Why do these things keep happening to me? I have no idea but I really need to find out. Today we are debating whether to go to the ER where at the very least I can get some heavy duty pain relief and with luck x-rays or scans to seek the problem(s). Tomorrow we have our grand daughter here and I need to find some strength from somewhere before then.
I'm tired. Tired and angry. All I want is to be able to look after my family, my garden and my beautiful grand daughter in relative comfort. This pain is sapping the joy out of my days and the sleep out of my nights. It takes all my energy and shatters my peace. It's too much. Why should I have to deal with this much pain constantly and without respite. My family shouldn't have to deal with the fallout, the anger and tears of despair.
The cost of chronic pain goes far beyond the physical and the price is far too high. Not just for me but also for those I love.
