Like all surgeon they gave me a time frame. Time frame to fly home, a time frame to walk, stand, sit, etc. The one I find the most humorous is the time frame in which I was going to be better. LOL. Lets not take these things that seriously during ones illness and injury. One thing I have read is allot of books and papers to do with chronic pain prevention and it's cure. It is just too much science for me and there are so many variables. We are all different. What works for me might not work for someone else. No, what I really should say is that chances are it won't work for someone else. So this is a sharing of information. Some things will fit some will not. IF you suffer in pain we have something in common.
I finally got to fly home. How nice do you think that was? Man if I only knew now what I knew then. I wouldn't have gotten on that plane in the first place. Something to do with flying bothers me to this day. Whether it be turbulence or altitude it all has negative effect on my pain. It is so bad that I fly with oxygen. The reason is that I get so tight around my thoracic spine. IT is like a belt getting cinched up around tighter and tighter. I cannot take deep breaths of air when this happens. I start to get really sick on the plane after a while. On one trip we took a battery operated sensor. It measures the percentage of oxygen in the blood. When I am at my worst while flying I will drop down to 87 percent. That really isn't that healthy! Pain, spasms, aches all need a large amount of oxygen. This is why at pain clinics they teach you breathing techniques. Breathing techniques can feed your hurting body as much oxygen as possible. It does help to relax the tension in a person's body. I start a breathe in and say out loud to myself. "in one two three hold" then hold your breath. The breath you take should come in to your lunges in a way that it expands your stomach. You hold your breath for a short time and then Say as you let your air out of your lunges "out two three four let go" as you say this let all the air out of your lunges completely. You have to stay focused on this exercise and expect sometimes up to ten minutes before you feel relaxed. IT is the best thing you can do to a hurting, stressed body.
After I came back home it was the beginning of a long list of changes in my life. The changes are necessary and as people we do not want change. Believe me make the changes that are necessary. Try not to fight them. The sooner you make the necessary changes the better. Any necessary changes are good for everyone around you too. I don't mean throw in the towel either. I just mean look for the subtle changes.
I was at home with no help. No one knew what was best for my condition. No one knew much about thoracic surgery. There was not allot of people that wanted to try anything, doing so usually ended in me suffering! I would try. It was my only hope. I used cross country ski poles for balance and I tried to walk a little everyday. One thing I had was a lot of determination but no direction.
I was in great amounts of pain. I patiently waited for the pain to settle. It seemed to drag me down to the floor, couch, or bed. That was my new reality how to stay on my feet. I was seeing my doctor every two weeks. There was no change in my pain. Time seemed to drag on . The only thing the doctor could do was give me more pain killers. Of course I would agree. I just wanted some more quality of life. I had very young children at the time that I wanted to spent allot of time with. I could not drive myself to town to see the doctor. I had to get a ride or take a cab forty kilometers to town.
I live in a very small community with small community resources. My family doctor changed my medication as much as he dared to try and find the best combination that would ease the pain even a little. It was a terrible time period of adjustment, terrible pain, depression and sickness. I was nauseated every day. I took medication for that. It seemed I took medications to counter all the other medications I was on. My Doctor was excellent. He did as much research as he could on the medications offered for my pain and strengthening depression. We tried many combinations to get to the combinations that I take today. Please do not be afraid to research and make suggestions if you are able. I was very fortunate to have a nurse as a wife. She was very helpful as well.
I just could not accept this situation I was in. I had something different in mind. I settled in for the fight of my life. I took all things related to my injury as my job. I was very serious at beating it. I truly felt that I could. All this makes no difference to the power of pain. The pain I was in brought me to the bottom of hell itself.
I struggled for many months trying to get the help I needed. It is out there don't ever think that it isn't cause it is . You will find it in one form or another. DO not stop seeking help. My family doctor referred me to a pain doctor. A doctor that studied pain and ran a practice trying to help people in pain. He prescribed a medication to me that has helped more than any I have taken before or since. It is gabapentin. It slowed down my extreme nerve pain. My nerve pain is Similar to a dentist drill on a healthy tooth. The pain ran down my right side from my foot into my thoracic spine at the surgery area then up into the side of my face. It sometimes came out my hands and feet. The gabapentin slowed down the flow of that pain. It damned it up to pool then spill over to continue it's journey through my right side to pool again. It was so much better than traveling at the speed it did before. It was better when it slowed down the speed of travel and some of the intensity. This pain I was in was almost devine in a way that is hard to explain. My thoughts of it were if I have to suffer like this at the hands of God then there is something out there for me for going through it.
I was using massage as well at this time. Yet the over all pain was still at an uncontrollable level. It was time to go see my surgeon to have a talk about what it could be and if there was any other options. I am guessing this was under a year into the recovery period.
I hope that this description does not bother the readers. I know there was a time where I could not read about other pain descriptions nor watch anything that would generate pain on T.V. Sometimes it is just good to read a pain description that best matches one selves. I hope that this helps in a way to make people feel that it was not only yourself that has suffered in similar pain. This would be most helpful for people first starting out as a pain patient.
If you are new to pain please try and not concern yourself with deadlines at this point. You will hear allot about time lines. One timeline I didn't like to hear is that after so much time in pain it is then classed as chronic pain. I think it is six months after an injury that they consider you someone that is experiencing chronic pain. It is just a guideline and everyone is different right?
Okay then. At this moment I am in allot of pain myself ! I will ask everyone my usual question. What is the one thing that you can think of that was positive in your life lately. For me I would say writing this blog is good for me mentally. Not physically of course. It seem to help me mentally to sit down and put my experience in print. I encourage everyone to do the same. I am able to do it because I now have a laptop. This means I can lay down and keep on typing. A laptop offers much more opportunities for my to write or just spend time on the computer. Take care and we will continue later on. Talk to you later.
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