Perils of laundry...

LOL. Weird because the same thing happened to me last night. Bending over to get the laundry from the washer to the dryer sent me through the roof, pain wise - then, like a dummie, I emptied the dishwasher right after that.

My pain has been out of control the past week I would say. So I've been having a bit of a pity party myself.

Hugs to you and I know what that realization feels like - I'm just truly going through it right now.

opening doors, using keys, washing dishes, plugging in cords, wiping off counters, unloading dw...loading seems okay. why??? mopping and sweeping too. Just a lot of little things that now weigh very heavily.

So much has changed and sometimes I have a hard time accepting my new life.

Taller,
Seems like this dance hall is lousy with so many wonderful people who shouldn't have to endure this mess.

I find myself getting really low at times. I am not able to express my fears adequately to the family...dont know if they could handle it anyhow. So instead I whine to y'all...my extended family. I don't have the right to fuss but sometimes I do anyhow.

The more I read about this dx the more I wish I had just broken my shoulder and been done with it...I could have grown a human being by now.

I guess patience just isn't a strength of mine right now...or housekeeping it seems.

I have a lot of these same problems. My pain isn't chronic back pain, but rather chronic pain from tumors in my pancreas along with the pain of Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn's and Diverticulosis. All three of these DX's contribute to my chronic abdominal pain. A couple of my doctors have even mentioned a condition called Abdominal Wall Pain, which is why I am on the Gabapentin along with the Fentanyl Patches as my ER med and Tramadol for BT. I also had my antidepressant switched from Celexa to Cymbalta. The Cymbalta is helping my depression a lot more than the Celexa ever did and I've only been on the Cymbalta for about a month now. Hopefully the Cymbalta can help reduce some of my chronic pain too as I have read it can help some people with chronic pain. I've also had to go back on Klonopin 1mg 3xdaily because of the stress of the medical problems but also to be able to deal with my wife and family through all of this. I have a history of depression and was also diagnosed with Panic Disorder when I was 15 or 16 years old. As of the time I was put back on the Klonopin in September of this year, I had been off of all Benzo's for almost a year. I had to go back on it though because I was getting to where I was having full-blown panic attacks at least 3 times a week. Being back on the Klonopin has reduced that to, on average, one or two major panic attacks per month. I'm hoping that the Cymbalta helps out enough to where I can cut it down to .5mg(half mg) 3-4 times per day.

Doing most any physical activity, especially ones that require me to bend over putting pressure on my abdominal areas, cause me increased pain. These activities mostly include laundry, dishes and just cleaning my home in general. There are a lot of other things that can cause my pain to worsen as well.

At this point in my life, I am basically a stay at home Dad because of my medical problems. My wife works 35-40 hours a week so she pretty much expects me to take care of everything at home including everything for our 5 year old son. I have my days that there are certain things I just can't do because I am already hurting really bad and I'm afraid to do something that will make it worse. I wish there was a way, or even the words, to explain to her how bad the pain is and how much worse it can get from doing some of these things on certain days. I know she doesn't understand because she will complain like if I don't get the laundry done one day while she is at work because I am having a bad day. I do the best I can to take care of things so she doesn't have all that much to do when she gets home from work. I wish I could do more, but there really isn't anyway I could do more considering how difficult it is for me to do the things my wife expects me to do.

I have an appointment with my lawyer on Thursday of this week to get the process of disability started. Hopefully it doesn't take more than a few months to get on disability or at least SSI so that she can work a little less and help me get some of the things done here at home. Financial stress is also something causing issues and I know SSI doesn't pay a lot but what is does pay would help us out a lot.

I can share in so much of this frustration. It even feels a little complicated for my own private brain to come to terms with because I can 'work out' at the gym. I can even work out pretty aggressively. Not only is it my primary coping mechanism (physically and emotionally), but gosh darnit it feels good to me!

Ahh, alas, but at the gym, I'm doing things in a controlled environment. I have things to hold onto. I'm performing specific and isolated movements with great focus and intention. Makes all the difference. When we're doing our household chores and basic ADL's, we end up recruiting our whole body in all sorts of crazy positions.

Yes, agreed, this gets very taxing, and even confusing. 'Acceptance' is truly in the mind of the beholder...





M.