Several years ago, I broke my ankle – shattered it, really –
while gardening. Thinking it was simply
sprained as usual, I walked on it for three days before going to see a
doctor. It is never a good thing when
they bring a wheelchair to the x-ray machine for you. I tell this not to boast, but to point out
that I recognize true pain, because I live with chronic pain.
In the mornings, I lie there for a few minutes doing a
mental check of my body, much like you use your tongue to probe your teeth for
sore spots. I start with my head and
base my headache on a scale of 1 to 10 – 3 is usually a pretty good start to
the day. Then I check my neck, shoulder,
and scapula, cracking my neck if at all possible. Next I breathe in as deeply as I can, because
I also have a lung disorder, and some mornings, it is more difficult to breathe
than other days. Once I determine how
much lung capacity I have, I move on to my flank, where I have abdominal
adhesions, and rate my pain – there is never a time when I do not hurt in my
side. Finally, I scan my arms, legs, and
feet.
After I perform this daily check, I roll to my side and push
myself up on the side of the bed. I
typically stretch my arms and legs before rising to my feet and stretching my
calves and hamstrings. Then I begin the
torture march to the bathroom. I have
neuropathy in my feet – a fancy way to explain the burning, stinging, and oddly
enough, numbness that I feel in my toes and the soles of my feet. I run myself a hot bath, checking my blood
sugar and recording it, and taking the first of several doses of medicine for the
day.
I carefully climb into the bath, water as hot as I can stand
it, and wait for my joints and muscles to loosen up. Without this daily heat treatment, I would
spend most of the day shivering and aching.
I do more gentle stretches in the water, bending each of my joints as
best I can and tightening and loosening the long muscles of my body. After 30 or 40 minutes, I carefully rise to
my feet, step out, and begin my morning ablutions.
I have a number of disorders that contribute to my daily
pain – polymyalgic rheumatica, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, cervical spondylosis. I take numerous prescriptions for these and
my other diseases, including anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxants, and
plain-old pain medications. I take about
20+ different pills in the morning and a few less in the evening. I live a life of routines I have developed to
better cope with my friend, pain. These
include the hot bath in the morning, the stretching, massages every other week,
and the meds.
Nothing seems to relieve
all the pain at once; one or two things help one or two pains for a short
time.
There is a fine line between drugged and over-drugged – I have
crossed that line before. In order to be
truly comfortable, I must be drugged enough that I cannot stay awake; but this
is no life. So I suffer a little so that
I can function a lot – not as much as most people, but more than is comfortable
for me. Again, I ask not for pity, but
rather understanding. So many are
critical of the number and types of drugs that I take -- I know that they mean
the best, but they do not understand what it is like to live in this body of
mine, to walk on a foot that is both numb and screaming with pain at the same
time. Some think that the pain is all in
my head, but I remember the broken ankle and the pain associated with that and
know the truth. I hurt all the
time.
