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BACK IN PAIN

All That Is Necessary For The Triumph Of Evil
Is That Good Men Do Nothing

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

How I Got Here

I never explained how I came to be a broken shell of my former self. That was done purposefully for reasons of anonymity and partly out of sheer embarrassment that I am no longer able to ....... well no longer able.

I know logically there was nothing I could do and there is nothing to be embarrassed about or ashamed of since I had no choice in the matter. I still can't shake the fact that I should be doing more for my family and friends, the way it used to be.

The fact is my spine was crushed under the massive weight of a falling object at work. That object unexpectedly found itself on my shoulder. (Still intentionally vague) I tried to hold this massive object rather than be crushed, yet when I held my ground the weight simply compressed my spine. Think about stepping on a soda can. I had a surgery that inserted ten screws, two rods and two hooks that was going to stabilize my spine and reduce the pain but the pain is still unbearable at times. An unsuccessful surgery is hard to deal with since it cannot be undone.

All I want is to provide for my family and be the only person I know how to be. Almost eight years and that person is only a memory even to me. I am still looking for the man who enjoyed helping others and taking care of my family. I liked him and I liked his life. That's enough whining for one day.

Wait one more thing. Any time I think things like that (I don't say it out loud) I feel like a whiner. It's easy to say just do as much as you can and be satisfied that it's enough. Well by my standards it is not enough. I may know my limits but my standards are still pre-injury. Yet it is impossible to live up to my own standards. I'm fine. Thanks



When chronic pain sets in, your life shrinks to fit your pain. You're less active, don't exercise. "That perpetuates the pain cycle, because it makes the perception of pain worse," Chan explains. "Your health, work, and relationships all suffer. You can't sleep. You're depressed. When your sleep and mood are affected, it perpetuates the feeling of pain."

Thursday, March 02, 2006

But it's So Easy

I can understand people taking the little things for granted. Things like picking something up off the floor or getting out of a chair. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get out of a recliner? I have to use the recliner because I need to lay back and take the pressure off my spine. Laying in a bed would be easier but I have to be out with my family and would not want it any other way. But it is hard for anyone not in pain to understand that getting out of a recliner is painful. You have to think is it worth getting up to get something or answer the phone you forgot to put next to you. And let me tell you that there is nothing worse than just sitting down getting the backrest positioned just right and the pillow adjusted and realizing you forgot something (happens often) and have to get up. Basically it sucks to have to even think about these stupid inconsequential things. I'm just saying. I'm fine. Thanks

Saturday, February 25, 2006

How Many Times?

Try to help and fail. Try to help and fail. Try ... You get the idea. Family and friends sometimes need your advice to show them how to do a project or just fix something. So I bite my tongue and smile (as I do anyway) to hide the amount of pain I am in, after all I am about to be indispensable giving out this information.

Going into it I feel good about being useful. Yet almost every time what ends up happening is I cannot communicate the information very well so frustration inevitably starts to rise for all party's involved. I am not sure why I cannot convey my intentions clearly. I speak clearly yet people have a hard time understanding what I want them to do. Before I was injured I would just show people what to do so they can learn from seeing it done. It was very easy. Now I spend so much energy standing there going over the same information over and over while the pain rises (along with the frustration) that nothing really gets done and it takes three times longer to do.

So how many times do you continue to try and help? Well the only answer that I can think of is every time. While it is easy to say just keep trying , just keep pushing over and over even when you know the outcome. The sad truth is each time you push through the pain to do something like this it gets a little more difficult mentally and physically to just do it. I'm Fine. Thanks.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Why is the Floor on the Bottom?

Just one quick thing. Who's idea was it to put the floor down so low? Every time something falls you have to go all the way to the floor to pick it up. It is really aggravating and painful to stoop so low. Pun intended. Not fine. Thanks.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Chronic Pain

The Right (and Wrong) Way to Treat Pain
HINT: IT TAKES MORE THAN A PRESCRIPTION PAD TO REALLY BRING RELIEF
By CLAUDIA WALLIS
February 28, 2005 issue
of
Time Magazine Article.

Chronic pain is a thief. It breaks into your body and robs you blind. With lightning fingers, it can take away your livelihood, your marriage, your friends, your favorite pastimes and big chunks of your personality. Left unapprehended, it will steal your days and your nights until the world has collapsed into a cramped cell of suffering.

Penny Rickhoff's world began to shrink suddenly in 1990, after a very tall and very heavy file cabinet toppled over onto her back. The freak accident damaged her spinal cord, leaving her with a constant, gnawing pressure in her lower back. "If I sit for very long, I'm in excruciating pain," she says. Once an avid tennis player, world traveler and amateur pilot, Rickhoff, who is in her 50s, was not only grounded, but she also became almost a prisoner in her home, unable to drive more than a short distance, unable to go anywhere without toting special "tush cush" pillows.

After seeing a dozen doctors, Rickhoff finally realized she wasn't going to be cured and started looking for ways to live with the pain. She took up Tai Chi and learned how to breathe deeply using her abdominal muscles. These pain- management skills enabled her to lower her dosage of morphine. But Rickhoff is the first to admit she can't make it through the day without her meds, and her powerhouse weapon was Vioxx. It helped destroy any pain, any time. Last September, when she learned that Vioxx was being pulled from the market by its manufacturer because of side effects, Rickhoff began to fret. "I knew from past experience that when I'd run out of a prescription, I would start to ache all over. I was so very distressed." She got a letter from her pharmacist urging her to return her supply of the drug, but she felt tempted--"very, very tempted"--to hang on to her hoard. "I'd taken it for five years with no problems at all," she says. In the end she figured it wasn't worth the risk. "So I returned it to the pharmacy and started suffering."............


.........This is true even for patients in extreme agony. After knee-replacement surgery, Donna Jaeger, 56, of Auburn, Calif., developed a neurological condition that caused excruciating pain that she rated a "17 on a 1-to-10 scale." Pain-management experts at U.C. Davis prescribed a multifaceted treatment that included powerful opioid drugs and a spinal implant--all of which helped. But Jaeger regards psychologist Symreng as "my saving angel." Breathing techniques and soothing relaxation tapes help Jaeger reduce her pain level from 17 to 4 or 5 on a good day. "But really," she says, "it is just the talking to her that helps, because the more you hurt the more anxious you get, and the more anxious you get the more you hurt."

Imaging techniques, which build on biofeedback principles, are another psychological option used at pain centers. At Stanford, Mackey has taught patients to literally watch "their brain on pain," using functional magnetic resonance imaging. By relaxing, they can watch lighted areas change color as pain fades. "It's tremendously empowering," he says, "all without medication."

Psychologists often play a critical role in persuading pain-hobbled patients to get moving again despite the blaring siren that tells them to keep still. "By educating them, by saying 'You've healed as much as you're going to heal,'" says Symreng, "we can deal with the No. 1 issue from a psychological perspective: the fear of reinjuring something." Getting the patient to move--or, better yet, exercise--not only restores function and raises spirits, it also prevents the cascade of health problems that stem from paralyzing pain. "If you're lying in bed all day," explains UCSF's Palmer, "you're going to have more problems from a cardiac standpoint, a pulmonary standpoint and a mental-health standpoint."

WHY DON'T MORE DOCS GET IT RIGHT?

If comprehensive pain-management centers are so good at providing relief, why aren't more doctors following their lead? The sad fact is that virtually every trend in medicine--from the training doctors get to the treat-'em-fast pressures of managed care to the way insurance companies cover or fail to cover alternative therapies--works against this. "We don't teach medical students enough about pain, even though it's the most common reason people go to doctors," complains Fishman of U.C. Davis. "We've really wandered from a basic philosophy in medicine, where you cure what you can but always treat suffering, to being focused only on curing."

Fishman, who is president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine, laments the way insurance plans favor quick pharmaceutical fixes over the kinds of physical and psychological therapies that chronic-pain patients need. The bias toward drug treatment is not only bad medicine but is also expensive. "When somebody comes in with 25 years of chronic pain," says Fishman, "I might sit with them for 90 minutes to get the beginning of the story, to really understand what's happening. The insurers would rather pay me $1,000 to do a 20-minute injection than pay me a fraction of that to spend an hour or two talking with a patient."

Inevitably, many patients who find their way to pain-management centers wind up paying out of pocket for some of the nontraditional parts of their treatment. Still, demand for these services is soaring. Six years ago, the center at U.C. Davis received 50 to 60 patient referrals a month; now it receives 500. With fewer than 200 multidisciplinary centers across the U.S., the need simply cannot be met. "The bottom line is that there will never be enough specialists to deal with the problem," says Fishman. "So we have to train primary-care physicians at the front lines to be able to do this as part of the basic care that we give patients." For that to happen, more doctors and patients will have to heed the lessons of Vioxx and Celebrex and refuse to settle for prescription-pad medicine. --With reporting by Dan Cray/ Los Angeles, Chris Daniels/ Toronto, Alice Park/ New York and Maggie Sieger/ Chicago

Monday, May 02, 2005

The working wounded

This story illustrates how we are hurting injured workers which is equivalent to kicking them while they are down. This is about half the article so to see the whole article click the story SF Gaurdian. I have personal experience with this and it is real. I saw this on another blog and had to post it. I will be calling and/or writing the Gov. to ask him to reform his reforms by saving money from insurance companies and not injured workers by stopping medical treatments please do the same.

How Schwarzenegger is saving Wall Street by decimating workers' comp – a report from the front lines.

IT WAS AN extremely fashionable thing in California politics last year to rant and rave about the workers' compensation insurance system. Newly elected governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made it a top discussion item, and the newspapers followed suit. To many people, it might have seemed like a bizarre obsession. As a political issue, the arcane system of laws governing how to treat work-injured people is mind-numbing.

It's true there were real problems with the system. Skyrocketing insurance rates were hurting businesses, and the insurance companies were still reeling from 9/11, a slow economy, and the unintended consequences of California's 1995 deregulation of the industry. And there was naturally some waste and fraud associated with the massive state bureaucracy.

Schwarzenegger needed a simpler story. The actor turned pol insisted the problem was litigation-happy attorneys and the injured workers themselves – a group he painted as cheats and scammers. Only by strictly limiting cash payouts to workers and keeping the attorneys at bay could he right this upside-down program – a system so shaky that more than 20 insurance carriers had gone belly-up in recent years.

He bullied legislators into passing a reform package just five months after he took office, and he has since declared victory: "Workers' comp reform has been a tremendous success," spokesperson Vince Sollitto told me. Since then, most lawmakers have moved on, occupied with other political fights.

But the real story behind workers' comp is still unfolding. Just days after the new law kicked in last April, life began to change dramatically for injured Californians. Once-routine medical visits were heavily scrutinized as potential crimes. Insurance companies started saying no to just about everything – according to doctors, workers, and attorneys I interviewed – almost as if they were testing the limits of the new law. …..

Fighting for care
It was late afternoon, and the plaza near Oakland City Hall bustled with people walking briskly under a gray midwinter sky. Mike Gerson emerged from a pair of massive glass doors and sighed. A grimace appeared on the attorney's weathered face. "You see?" he asked. He'd been showing me the ropes at the East Bay's main workers' compensation court, a place where miserable-looking workers sit in a waiting room for hours while attorneys cut deals in fast-paced, acronym-laden sessions down the hall.

It's never been a real friendly place to visit: this is where injured people wind up when they're fighting for medical care or when there's a disagreement over how to settle their cases. Workers' compensation laws can confuse professionals, let alone these neophytes.
……
As of April 2003, there were 3.69 million active cases in the state, and a million workers file new claims each year. About 200,000 of them are in the market for an attorney each year. (The state also keeps statistics on fraud, by the way, which show that only a tiny percentage of workers are even suspected of gaming the system – along with a handful of insurance companies, doctors, and attorneys.)

The law – passed last April by the legislature as Schwarzenegger threatened to bring even more stringent reforms to the ballot – cut costs in several other ways as well. It limited compensation for lost wages, gutted the state's job-retraining program, gave insurance companies the right to strictly manage medical treatment, and – perhaps most significantly – slashed the amount of money an injured worker can get to pay for the medical costs that will come with a lifetime of disability. Rules being promoted by workers' comp chief Andrea Hoch have made these changes even more severe.

The state hasn't done a study to show how payments for permanent disability will change, but according to UC Davis researcher Paul Leigh, those benefits will be cut by as much as 70 percent. A carpal tunnel syndrome patient he cites would see her payment – meant to cover medical care for the rest of her life – drop from $116,000 to just $17,000. Why? Much of this disability is measured in pain, and after the initial treatment, pain no longer counts. …..

Reform or bailout?

Schwarzenegger has become known as a prodigious and persistent fundraiser in his short tenure. His top-dollar dinners have generated almost as much press as his policy proposals. His various committees have taken in more than $1.2 million from insurance companies, including at least $560,000 from workers' compensation firms, according to an analysis by the Santa Monica-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR).

And so far the reforms have been kindest to insurance firms. Financial reports at the end of 2004 showed they were pulling in dramatically higher profits – just eight months after the law's passage.

AIG, the largest private carrier in the state, reported $11.05 billion in profits for 2004 – up 19 percent from 2003. The California Applicants Attorneys Association, which represents lawyers for injured workers, reports that this is in spite of a dramatic 1,300 percent increase in payout by AIG for hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis. Another one of the big guys, the Zenith National Insurance Co., also saw income rising. The CAAA's review of Zenith's books shows workers' comp income shooting up 250 percent, from $29.3 million in 2003 to $104 million last year.

From this perspective, the "reforms" start to look more like a massive corporate-bailout scheme: keep rates unregulated and give the insurance companies the right to cut costs any way they can. Some smart investors may have seen the bonanza coming: billionaire Warren Buffett, one of Schwarzenegger's top financial policy advisers, opened a new line of workers' compensation insurance just a few months after the law was signed, through his company Berkshire Hathaway.

Meanwhile, the cost of insurance has dropped slightly for business owners – about an average of 16 percent – and prices may come down again later this month. But many businesses, particularly small companies or those with high-risk employees, are reporting little to no change, and some are even seeing rate hikes as insurance companies get creative with their billing plans.

High costs to businesses were what originally drew the public's attention. The state insurance commissioner, who has only an advisory role, had suggested 10-to-20 percent hikes several years in a row, but some companies reported having to pay hikes of 30 to 50 percent a year for the past few years. Yet those increases seem mainly due to deregulation and the high cost of health care in general.

Just as deregulation of the electricity market sparked a self-destructive path for energy firms, things went sour for insurers right around the time they convinced legislators to open up the workers' comp market. After the deregulation law kicked in, companies underbid each other in a frenzied customer grab. With health and legal costs rising, company reserves dwindled – even as worker injury rates declined. When the national economy tanked, the remaining financial cushion was deflated. Those that stayed solvent did so by charging ever higher rates.

"It's a cycle that we see in the insurance industry just about every decade," FTCR executive director Doug Heller explained. He said the insurance companies sunk themselves. "The economy goes south, stock prices are down, and bonds are devalued. When that happens, investment income declines. So they tighten their belts – or tighten the noose around policy holders."

No surprise there. After all, this is the insurance industry we're talking about, the same field targeted by New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer in a wide-ranging corruption probe. One of Spitzer's top targets is AIG, which is accused of inflating profits in a deal cut with Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.

Squeezing workers
I was shocked the first time I heard a story about someone made homeless by a work-related injury: I had always, perhaps naively, believed the system had an obligation to workers who'd hurt themselves on the job. But as I interviewed more and more people for this story, I heard too many tales of homelessness, bankruptcy, and even suicide.

One man I spoke to has a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, yet a debilitating RSI in his arms has left him emotionally and physically worn and unable to earn money in his field. "I've been totally devastated by this," he told me. "I was homeless for a while. I lost pretty much everything you can lose."

That wasn't what Gov. Hiram Johnson had in mind for us when he called on California to create a workers' comp insurance system after he took office in 1911, though Johnson was looking out for business at least as much as for injured workers. ….

The thing about an injury that comes from your work is that it's all-consuming in its devastation. If you love what you do, your wounds divide you from your passion. And it's hard to feel good about yourself when you can't live up to your potential. If you are working to put food on the table, as most of us are, the anxiety attendant on work-related pain is a constant. …..

Several surgeries and court appearances later, Harlan has a stomach-grinding $40,000 debt on the credit cards she's used to support herself while the insurance company delays her health care.

As with most work-injured people I spoke with, this was just one of many stories Harlan has about the challenges of the system. She's had problems stemming from an insurance industry merger, dealt with bizarre questioning about her prior health history (one insurance representative implied that because she'd had back pain during childbirth, she might have a predisposition to pain), and faced off against the sluglike pace of the state agency that oversees workers' comp disputes. "We're almost two years behind in my treatment because of the court delays," she told me.

...profession is under attack by Schwarzenegger, who says chiropractors and acupuncturists in particular are wont to overtreat. But that's a tough call: the alternative is to use painkillers, which are more easily approved but often have lingering nasty side effects.

....by refusing to treat pain, and by limiting care for chronic injuries, the Schwarzenegger law is actually making injuries worse. "Trauma initiates chronic degenerative changes. [But now] health care is limited to functional restorations. Not pain, or tingling.... There's a denial that once a joint has been injured, it changes over time, so the idea is that over the years there's less reason to treat. In fact, there's more reason to treat."

....... "They don't want to pay for anything they call maintenance; they want to treat to cure. They're basing this on an old 19th-century model of a guy who got his hand caught in a machine, and we have to pay for his prosthesis and we're done with him.... If a person's diabetic, you don't say to them, 'Well, you've had enough insulin.' "

The frustrating experience of fighting with insurance company medics has many, including Glassman, opting out of the industry. The new law kills your right to choose your doctor anyway, leaving patients to grapple mainly with doctors hired by employers and insurance companies whose primary interest is in cutting costs.

while there are deep problems within the system, there's a larger societal issue that needs addressing: "Ultimately, some of it comes down to not having universal health care that follows you from job to job." That way you wouldn't have to prove your pain was job-related – you would just be treated. …..

While it's all sorted out, injured people will still need support, and the already overtaxed county hospitals and social welfare systems will have to bear some of the burden – even as they themselves are under assault. With the shredding of the safety net in full effect, what was once a financial muddle for a handful of insurance companies will become a crisis of far grander proportions: an injured public, without access to health care or a way to pay for a roof over their heads.
"It's part of the Grover Norquist program – returning to the days of Dickens, essentially," Lee Worden, a 35-year-old with a decade-old RSI, told me. (Norquist is a conservative policy strategist and a Schwarzenegger ally.) "You can't look at this separately from the dismantling of the safety net. Pretty soon we'll have a direct path from white-collar employment to workers' comp to the streets. It's not really shifting the burden to programs like G.A. [General Assistance]. It's sinking all boats at once."

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Burn Baby Burn

Oh the burn. The top and side of my hand is burning bad and the pain in my back is sharp and my headache is of the chart right now. I was feeling pretty good yesterday and had a good debate online that took my mind off the pain but the typing has done me in. Point and click is good typing is bad it seems to set the pain off, oh well it was fun while it lasted. Until next time. I'm fine Thanks

Saturday, April 09, 2005

Family and Pain

The week has not been to good. It has been a painful week but not as bad as last week. I am feeling bad about not being able to help my family as much as I used to. I should not feel guilty but it is hard not to. I cannot do the things I used to and it is at times so frustrating I feel like I am letting them down. I know it is not my fault but things have changed so much. I have to find a way to be usefull by my standards. I'm Fine Thanks.




Sunday, April 03, 2005

Oh Damn

Oh crap I hurt bad. The last couple of days have not been so good. So much for my escape. I can not even sleep.I have a burning on the right side that is complementing my massive headache, pain in the arm and lets not forget the pain that goes through my chest. My family deserves better. I'm fine. Thanks


Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Escape the Pain

I have found a way to escape the pain for short periods of time. All you need to do is keep your mind occupied by engaging in a in depth conversation ,debate or argument . This will not only take your mind off the pain for short periods of time but will also work your mind which in turn will make you feel better and more “alive”. So get online on the phone or have friends or family over to discuss any issue you feel passionate about. You will feel better even for short periods of time. Every bit helps. I’m fine Thanks.


Friday, March 11, 2005

Bad Law

Well the senate passed reform of the bankruptcy laws of course it does not do any favors for those in pain. People with chronic pain will typically have medical bills that can overwhelm them if they do not have good medical insurance(Even with insurance medical bills can bankrupt a person). The new law will certainly pass the house and be signed by the President. Over half of the 1.6 million bankruptcy's last year were the result of medical bills and three quarters of them had health insurance. Now with the new law people that get ill or have an accident and can't keep up with medical bills they will have a much more difficult time with bankruptcy. I think people who run up credit cards and then go bankrupt to avoid paying what they owe are not the same as someone that is injured or disabled. I do not think people should lose everything because through no fault of their own have become sick or disabled. The health care system in the country can not continue on the present path for to much longer but the insurance company's have a tremendous amount of power and will fight any change. I have insurance, however we won't be able to afford it for much longer and something will have to give soon because the premium has been rising $100 a month every year for the last four years . So everyone call your representatives and let them know what you think, let me know also. I'm fine Thanks.


N.Y. Times Article

Sunday, March 06, 2005

Pain

I was wondering if anyone has had severe upper back pain that feels like being severely shocked in the upper back right side. I have always said it is the stabbbing pain (doctors do not have shock as an option on forms).I have never been stabbed but I have been shocked its the closest to what it feels like. This is a major problem that seems to be getting worse. I think it is from typing even though I am lying down and supporting my arms.I had a injury that crushed 5 vertabrae and discs 6 level fusion did not help.I also have severe headaches and burning in right hand and fingers. The shock from my back can go to the front of my chest on the right side more than left. It is getting alot harder to move at all.I have tried many treatments over the years within the last year or so I have tried accupunture and botox injection to calm the muscles on the right side of my back while they seem to be helping the insurance wont authorize it anymore.I am typing with my left hand and I have to stop any help wuold be greatly appreciated. I'm fine Thanks.

Saturday, March 05, 2005

Baaad Daay

I dont think I am over my bad day earlier this week.My right side feels like its on fire cant sleep cant think.(maybe I never could).Even laying here I cant type without more pain. I am a two finger typer anyway which is a little less painful than than useing both arms (I have been typing for 20 minutes on this)just kidding its only been 15 minutes.When I move I usualy get hit with a shock anyone who has been shocked by 110v knows the feeling now imagine taking the wires and sticking them in your back on the right side upper back thats the stabbing pain I get the other pain I have is equaly unpleasant.I'm fine.Thanks

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Back in Paradise

Well I am back. The pain takes me down on sometimes but it is starting to calm down a little bit.I have a 6 level spinal fusion that did not give me the relief I would like but I could not move without the medication even if I hate it and what it does to your mind and body.I quess you have to take the good with the bad even when it seams like it is mostly bad. You have to look for the good.You have to escape mentally to truely get relief.(easier said than done). I'm fine Thanks

Sunday, February 27, 2005

About My Last Post

I am laying here trying to think of something humorous but I am not feeling it.I am having a bad day. Bad Day. I hate that term bad day. I have way to many bad days. It seems like I am always saying I can't I am having a bad day.I am sick of bad days, the term bad day and and feeling bad. I have to go I am laying here typing with my finger nail because my fingers are hypersensitive and even with my arms supported my back hurts bad.Bad day.I'm fine thanks.

Saturday, February 26, 2005

What to Do

I have been thinking what I want to do with this blog. I was thinking I would use it to vent about all my pain which I may still do because I don't like talking about it so maybe I will write about it but I think I will try for humorous, ironic or stupid. I think I will try for the first two but will probably end up with the third one.(hint: its stupid). I appreciate the comments and those of us in pain know the only real relief is to not dwell on the pain or it will get worse so we need to occupy our minds even if for just a short time. I know there are alot of people alot worse off than me and I wish them all the best and I should probably feel lucky that I can still walk,feel lucky I am not paralyzed and I did not die so I should feel lucky. Right? F*^% THAT. I DO NOT FEEL LUCKY I FEEL SCREWED. Whoa were did that come from anyway I will try for humorous , ironic or just stupid because if we dwell on our pain it will consume us. Don't let that happen and try to escape if just for a little while. I'm fine. Thanks

Current Page.

Friday, February 25, 2005

Mind games

I was just wondering if all people with chronic pain lose their minds on occasion. I have noticed that when the pain starts getting more intense my mind will sometimes go blank or I just can't think straight. Besides the frustration of it all I can't explain why my brain does not work right when the pain gets high (not that it worked right before). The right side of my upper back and head feel like they are in a vise right now which is a little better than when it feels like being stabbed from the back all the way to the chest. By the way I'm fine. Thanks


I Don't Like to Meet People

I don't like to meet new people. I better explain that it is not the people I don't like it's just to hard to try to move and act like a normal person. I don't know why I but I feel like I have to hide my pain from everyone including family and friends. It is just embarrassing to not be the strong person I used to be and to need help from people so I try to act like everything is O.K. That seems to be my standard answer when asked how are you doing I just say I'm fine. So I need to go to the store while trying to walk normal to keep people from staring or worse asking me what happened or what's wrong. I hate to talk about it because I feel like I am being judged and people think maybe the pain is not that bad or just have the doctor do this or that (never thought of that ). I know most people have good intentions but I don't want to stand and talk about it that just hurts more,and by the way I'm fine. Thanks


Thursday, February 24, 2005

Pain Exhibit

Here is a link to the Pain Exhibit a site with art from chronic pain sufferers about chronic pain.
http://painexhibit.com/ there are some art works sent in from all over. Rob

Another Day in Paradise

I could barely get up and walk but at least the pain is high. ha. The meds are finally kicking in so I can move a little bit. Everyday is just another day in paridise. Rob

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Back in Pain

Chronic pain is a thief. it breaks into your body and robs you blind.
With lightning fingers, it can take away your livelihood, your marriage, your friends, your favorite pastimes and big chunks of your personality. Left unapprehended, it will steal your days and your nights until the world has collapsed into a cramped cell of suffering.

This is from the cover story of TIME MAGAZINE and I have lived it along with many others. Here is a link to the story- http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101050228/story.html I hope it helps. Rob


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