The struggles we go through to simply make it through the day at times astound anyone who has never had to live with an illness. Add to it the reaction from some in the medical community and all the uneducated thinking that chronic pain sufferers are simply drug addicts using illness as a reason for their addiction. For me this equals days of sobbing and a feeling of being a burden.
The insurance company still won't cover anything except tramadol, Vicodin, and MS contin. Tolerance to the first two has been established, and my doctors refuse to make me go back to a trial of non-narcotic pain relief because it does nothing. So I am on MS contin and have lost all ability to function. I fainted from pain before, and now I faint from dizziness also. It takes me much longer to make a complete thought, and even longer to have it make sense to someone else. There is pain relief for less than 3 hours at 15 mg a day, and my doc does not want to increase it because of the side effects. I have to take nausea medication, which increases my mental fog. I have slept 17 hours out of the last 24 and still feel tired and drugged. I have no desire to do anything. I remember nothing I read, what happened with my family, or even what TV shows were on. When I talk to the doctor's office, there is nothing they can do to make things move faster. I have called the insurance company repeatedly, filed a grievance, complained that they don't have my doctor's four appeal letters and are making the office reapply for the fentanyl authorization because of the side effects MS contin causes. My poor office must now do everything over again, which is ridiculous.
This leaves me very depressed. With my fiance home to see just how bad things really are for me day to day, it seems as though our wedding will not happen now. I can see it on his face, that he never knew how bad it really was, and we talked about the future. It was not a nice talk. So here I am, a burden to him, to my sons, my friends, and unsure of what to do about it. The insurance isn't interested in how bad this makes me feel, just if it causes any pain relief. The doctor's office has better things to do than fight with my insurance company, who never even sent the required denial letters to myself and my doctor. I have fought as much as possible through this stupid fog, and I am sure that everyone I have spoken to thinks I am a drug seeker from the stoned sound of my voice. I went to a counsellor, who agreed to a lowered rate, but there isn't enough to cover anything with the fiance out of work.
Sorry to be a burden here also. It just feels like everything that I worked so hard to get to has fallen down around me and I don't have the energy to being to stack it all back up again.