My Sob Story (better get the tissues) LOL!

Well okay, here it is.

February 16th 2009

It was week before our vacation. My wife and I were going on a cruise to Jamaica and Grand Cayman on the beautiful Navigator of the Seas, sigh. I am a total cruise junky. 

Anyways I was going in to the office on a Saturday to get crap done so I din’t fall behind when I was gone for the two weeks.

At this point, I was a somewhat successful, "normal" 29 year old male with average health. Slightly overweight but I have a normal diet and lifestyle for someone my age.

Then it happens. I had seen this car with a number on it to call if interested and so I was storing the number on my phone, yes, while driving.

There was hardly anyone around except for a few cars that were way far up the road. Well I ASSumed they were turning at the light but the car in front of this huge truck was turning into a business and the truck came to a sudden, almost complete stop. I looked up just in time to see I was hitting him.

I was going about 40. The truck was an F350. It did not move when I hit it.

I was in a Taurus and the trailer hitch of the truck pierced the bumper of my car and hit the frame, bending the frame into the radiator and then the engine compartment. The car was totaled, but there was not a scratch on even the trailer hitch of the truck??? Who knows.

I was aware that my neck snapped but I didn’t go to the hospital.

I really didn’t think much of the whole thing, other than it sucked for my car.

A week after we got home from our trip I started to feel funny. I would have these terrible dizzy spells. I actually fell down the stairs and landed in the laundry basket once. They only lasted for a few minutes a day. Then it got more frequent and more severe. Then they got longer and longer to the point that I had to do something. I had tests done. MRI's MRA's CT's. Nothin. Sometime in May 2009, the dizziness faded and was replaced with pain. It was sort of blah at first, like a dull ache. Then it got really bad. It almost felt like the worst migraine of your life but different.

The pain is disabling and totally random. It always starts out really, really bad in the morning. It takes nearly four to five hours to wear off, if it does. Sometimes it can last for days without a single break. Then for the rest of the day it is like a light switch. It flips on and then within five minutes I better get to a bed or flat surface because all hell is about to break loose. It goes on and off during the day at random for no reason at all. It might last for five minutes, five hours, or take me out the rest of the day. I have tried my darnest to make sense of the timing but I can’t come up with anything.

Basically, It feels like someone is slowing sawing into your C2 vertebrae area (on the left side for me) with a serrated blade. Then it starts to feel like someone is chopping your neck with an axe. Then the pain in the eye starts, feeling like someone is stabbing your eye over and over again with an ice pick. My scalp becomes sore and painful to even touch. Every hair on my head feels like it is burning. I get hypersensitive to light and sound just like a migraine. I have to immediately lay in a cold dark room. My teeth on that side start to hurt when it gets really bad. My face feels swollen and it feels like I am bleeding all down my face, like I have been beat with a baseball bat. It is so bad, SOOO bad. I have never had a pain that could totally take me OUT before. There is no fighting it, not at all. I am not saying anything to others who have other pains, but I have had quite a lot in my small amount of years. It seems like you can almost "ignore?" well not ignore, more like put the (broken arm pain) on the side burner while you watch TV or something? Does that make sense? It still is terrible and unbearable but you can mentally do something else at the same time. You can not do that with this. You can not think. It is like someone is screaming in your face with a bullhorn and the gears in your head won’t even budge. It’s insane. I have even considered ******* it is so bad. Maybe god would forgive me because he would understand that I just couldn’t take it anymore?

Nobody understands. I look totally normal when this is occurring, except for the look on my face of course. Everyone kinda treats you like "yeah right" it’s sooo bad, uh hu. I am sure my boss thinks I am making the whole thing up. I even had one girl at work tell me, "well I get headaches all the time and I still come to work!" HA!

The doctors put me on 60mg Norco and 3600mg Ibuprofen and then later 800mg Nuerontin. They just dull the pain. It takes the edge off sometimes, that’s about all. I have seen a family doctor, 4 pain management doctors, 3 neurologist, 2 neurosurgeons, 2 spine specialist, a psychiatrist, a chiropractor, 2 physical therapist, and even a dentist (don't ask) I have had 3 occipital nerve blocks, 3 c2 facet blocks, a c2 nerve burning, and still the pain persists.

To tell you the truth, I don't think these doctors know what the frack they are talking about. What the hell? I thought this is the 21st century? Modern medicine? Blah. What a joke! I am certainly not impressed. They can't even make up their mind on a diagnosis, let alone a cure.

Here is the real quick run-down on what this has done to my life, so I don't have to whine and complain too much about it:

-I am on family medical leave (unpaid) I can work when I can basically, which has not been a lot

-Because of the previous I am missing 15,000 of wages for the last year or so

-Our house is in foreclosure because of that

-Our cars are in Jeopardy of being repossessed

-Some of my family won't talk to me anymore because they think I am a fraud

-My boss hates me now but can not fire me because of the FMLA

-My wife and I are very close to getting a divorce over finances caused by this

so...

I need help. If I can't fix myself soon then I might as well just throw in the towel with my life.

please. If anyone out there knows what to do, please, tell me.

I will try anything. I don't care if I have to fly to China and have some acupuncture with dragon whiskers done or something, I will do it.

Thanks for reading,

Jay

U can reach me at [email protected] as well.

Post Edited By Moderator (Dani Henson) : 7/4/2010 10:12:31 AM (GMT-6)

From looking at the medical side of things you have gone the gambit and ended up up empty handed. This happens more than you realize. All drs are not created equal that is for sure. I am not sure where you live, but you may want to consider going to a teaching hospital if you have one within any distance of your home. The teaching hospitals are different in many ways. With the drs at those places you are not dealing with the usual dr ego thing that most have. So many of these drs, their egos are bigger than life and get in the way of so many things. Please give this some consideration. In the event you decide to do this, you will need all of the films of your xrays like the MRI, MRA and Ct Scans. These films need to go with you to the appt if you decide this is something you want to do. The drs there can review the films and may see something no one else did. Misread xrays are not uncommon. They will not be interested in plain film xrays but the others yes. In many ways you do describe a migraine type headache. But, as one of the other members said, none of us are drs here. We all pretty much speak from our own personal experiences. I was treated once for a neck injury from an auto accident and traditional medicine was of no help. I finally agreed to accupuncture because the pain was just incredible. Nine treatments and I was pain free. Three months of meds & PT did not touch it. This was also the Chinese method a dr here learned. He saved me a ton of grief and many others have been helped with pain this way too.

Depression is another animal that comes along with CP for some reason, they seem to go hand in hand. If you are not being treated for depression you may want to give this some great consideration. I can assure you, only the strong survive CP, it is not a sign of weaknss at all. Not just anyone can walk a day in our shoes. It is a very difficult life to live but it can be done. If you have insurance that will pay for professional counseling by all means give this a great bit of consideration. Whether it be a psychologist that treats CP or one that has treated many with CP it can be co-pay money well spent. I would have never survived without the one I saw, she was wonderful. I have many different health issues and she was great. As far as your marriage is concerned, get help there too. CP can destroy a person if they are not careful, you just have to pick and choose your battles carefully. Don't ever try to fix it all in one day, you are setting yourself up for failure going down that road. As someone else mentioned, deal with what is the most imporant and the other stuff with fall in line.

CP has so many different faces and it can take away so many aspects of our lives.  Any time a person has a life altering experience such as CP, you will grieve the loss of so much. It can be anything from loss of financial security, friends, and family to just name a few. Friends and family as a rule do not understand CP because most of the time we look as usual self. Its not like we have a disfiguring thing happening here. The other side of the token is if we don't understand it, how can anyone else either.

I do hope that you can get some help with your situation. Another thing I would like to mention is we have a section here at the top called CP101, please check into it when you have a chance. There is a wealth of information there and some may apply to you. We so ask all members to read the forum rules as we all need to be rowing this boat in the same direction. We have to keep in mind this is a family oriented site. Please keep posting and letting us know how you are coming along.