Snap and Pop

Oh yes, it is after three in the morning. I lay down in bed and try to sleep but it is not going to work. I had to take my hydos (a couple of them actually) to get out of the really bad pain earlier and I fell asleep for a few hours. So now I sit here hearing and feeling the snaps and pops as I move a hand or a foot. I have to say that they feel better now, somewhat anyway, as much as can be expected anyway. I just hate not being in control of a routine for sleep.

This pain is crazy. It amazes me how I have dealt with it this long. Seems like yesterday that it started but it really is all just a blur of when since it so gradually esclated to this point. I try search my memory for first clues of what forcasted this disease process. I try to figure out the different pains that I feel and label them accordingly while asking myself, "Is that the rheumatoid arthritis or the degenerative disc disease". Of course, I spend time wondering if my Bipolar disorder plays a role in the pain or of my feelings about the pain. I am just totally consumed by this process. Yeah, that's what I will call it, "This process".

So why do I spend my time consumed with trying to figure out pain and label the pain. Why does it matter that it has a label? I guess to make the doctors happy or to suffice my family with a title to what is wrong and why I have applied for social security disability benefits and why we lost our house when I could no longer work. A title to please the DEA when my doctor continues to prescribe me Hydrocodone 10/500 four times a day. Something to satisfy my own mind that I need for sanity maybe.

I've spent the past three days reading the boards on a website about chronic pain and the suffering of people all over the world. I thought it would help me some to know that I was not alone. I mean, I knew that I was not the only person suffering but it helped me put some of my thoughts and feelings into perspective and at least move out of my world for moments of time. I guess the surprising realization that I had was that there are people being stigmatized everywhere for being a person with chronic pain. I was amazed by the magnitude of this epidemic. The stories that I read over and over again pointed to thousands of people that could not get medical professionals to treat their pain appropriately. All of these poor souls left to be under treated, or untreated, and suffer in agony.

As a medical professional myself, I remember the patients that would want every pill coming to them. I heard the other nurses label patients 'med seekers' or 'drug addicts'. I actually remember thinking those labels towards patients that were mine periodically (and feeling horribly torn about it). I remember feeling frustration about a person's pain that seemed to be difficult to treat but I never withheld or refused to call a doctor and I always made sure that I remembered what I learned in nursing school, "Pain is what the patient says it is".

I know that there are so many people abusing drugs in our society but something has to be done to assure that our doctors are not afraid to treat pain. We cannot stigmatize people with chronic pain and realize that we may not actually ever see on a test result scientifically of why that person feels that pain. I find myself in fear of this new chronic pain patient role. I know the obstacles that face me. I am scared of them. I pray my surgical scars on my back suffice.