Waiting for a miracle to heal from chronic pain

Hello, I am new to the forum;found your website by just lurking on google. I am surprised I joined,I am extremely private and keep things to myself..I have suffered chronic pain since 1997. My neck was the culprit, I had a herniated disc between C5/C6. My doctor wanted to operate immediately, but I refused hoping that offending disc would slide back into where it should belong.

I waited for a year, but the pain kept on getting worse. I was told by my neurosurgeon that, if I wait any longer my right leg would become paralyzed. My surgery was in 1998; fusion between C5/C6, with a bovine bone. I was too scared to let my Dr. use a piece of bone from my hip.

The surgery failed, I did not fuse until a year later.My Dr. was dumbfounded, he said success rate is usually 80 per cent. I am also depressed, and suffer from endometriosis. I am on so much medication,
Fentanyl,lyrica,cymbalta,codeine..I am so embarrassed, I don't want to mention anymore,but I think you get the picture!

I don't have a life, I have secluded myself from everyone. Sorry, but I am ashamed of myself. My siblings do not support the meds I take, nor do they understand, they say everything is in my head. I am trying to get out of my funk, but am not succeeding. I feel death is the best alternative. I am trying really hard to do things I enjoy, like quilting and cross stitching. I joined the Cross stitch forum, to help motivate me. I also joined the Quilting Board, but I fired them!

I will stop for now, I apologize in advance for boring anyone.

Thank you for reading my thread.

Kind regards,
Sandra

Hi Sandra & welcome to the chronic pain forum. I am glad that you found us. From what I have read in your post you really need a place you can go to & get all of the negative things off of your chest. You found the right place to do this by coming here. I think you will find everyone here to be completely supportive, as we all live in the world of chronic pain & no one understands it any better than someone that lives with it too. People that do not suffer with this really have no clue what it is like. Even the ones that are supportive don't know really what it is like. You know the old saying about walking a mile in my shoes, lol. Well, they probably would not make it a quarter of a mile, lol.

I am sorry that your siblings do not understand but this is very common. Ignore the comments from them about it being in your head, you did not dream this pain up, no one in their right mind would consider that. Have you tried talking to any of them & told them how hurtful they are being when they talk to you like that? Family & friends often just do not get it. One thing I did early on is stop discussing any health issues with family or friends. I am not saying you should do this, but it was the only way I could keep my sanity. The same with your medication, for sure never discuss that anyone, unless it is someone you trust. Family & friends have been known to help themselves to a few medication bottles, not saying this will happen to you, but you just never know. You should never apologize to anyone about your health status, you did not ask for this to happen to you.

Good for you in trying to find something to do to help take your mind off of the pain. It is hard to do, I understand. But the more we can involve ourselves away from CP the better off we are. I too keep myself busy as I can & what my body will allow me to do. I try to concentrate on what I can do, not what I can't do. It is really hard to swallow that bitter pill & accept things as they are now, but it can be done. One thing I did was get some professional help. I found a wonderful psychologist that was very helpful to me. She explained to me that when I had to stop working that I began a grieving process that was completely normal. My world as I knew it suddenly was turned upside down with me caught right in the middle of it.

Again, you should never apologize to anyone because of your health or any medications you may require to function. You are entitled to quality life just like anyone else. We do what we have to function. It is no different for someone that is say diabetic or someone with high blood pressure, they take meds for those conditions too.

You know you spoke of secluding yourself, yes that is another process we go through. There are so many processes that we seem to go through on this journey. Even feeling like sometimes we don't want to live. Been there & done that. But, the bottom line is we are only human & sometimes it is easy to be at the end of our rope. So, when you feel you are at the end of your rope, tie a knot in it & hang on.

I take it eventually your fusion did take, but you ended up with chronic pain as a result of the surgery. Unfortunately, this does happen sometimes. We just never know about these things happening to us at the time.

You hang in there and keep pushing yourself some to be more active. Try to start getting out some, even if it is to get in your car & go to a hobby store to look around. I do a lot of of this, I will hop in my car & say ride to WalMart, Lowes or Home Depot anything to get me out of the house and around people.

Also, our forum has rules that the administrator has posted above towards the top on the right. We ask all members to take a look at them and become familiar with them. It just makes it easier to row the boat if we are all paddling in the same direction.

Anyway, I wanted to pop on & say hello & welcome aboard. Please keep us posted on hoe you are doing, take care....Susie

Sandra,

I welcome you too, to HW CP. These folks are like a second family to me, hope you find some comfort and answers here. You are now part of our family.

You have already been given some great advice, so I can't add much of value to that part.

If you need to vent, this is the place to do it, we all do from time to time.

Never lose hope, we are here for you,

david

It is all to common for our families to not understand, mine do not understand and so I'm not in contact with them much anymore and I'm better off. Hey if they cannot understand then it's their problem and it's not my job to sit and explain everything to them. Counseling does help, I have a very good chronic pain counselor and that was a huge step forward for me, so I would suggest you at least look into that. Everyone else here gave some great advise, for me I'm a very slow cross stitcher so if I can just sit and only do a few stitches a day then that makes me happy nothing says you can't be slow at it, just put it in a bag keep it by your favorite chair and when you do feel a good day then pick it up and just do a few stitches it will turn out, nothing is perfect so just do what you can, maybe knitting might be better for you...quilting is a lot more effort and I can understand you not doing that one it's a lot more involved and so hard on the back, I tried it and couldn't do that...but do not give up on the cross stitching can you try doing a small piece I love doing the banding (which are hard to find) as it can fit on your lap and no hoops...even doing just one stitch a day is progress...maybe look into pool physical therapy, but I agree with purgatory, you got to hang onto hope...many well wishes and do keep us posted...

Sandra, we are never alone here on this forum. So many of us keep really crazy hours because we cannot sleep like normal folks. I have been like a cat prowling in my house at night for the past 3 years. I am trying very hard to turn that around & make myself lay down at least by 2:00 am. I am not a daytime sleeper either, except for when exhaustion takes over & I nod off in the chair.

You have the right idea, take this mess a day at a time. Sometimes its moment by moment because every day is different.

Take care......Susie