Chronic pain disables more people than cancer or heart disease. More than eighty-six million patients have been diagnosed. One out of three will have this condition. This book takes a no-nonsense approach that can be understood by chronic pain patients, families, friends and professionals alike. It is a practical guide describing lifestyle changes others can learn and use to take control of the pain. Share the struggles and triumphs of the following types of chronic pain patients:
- Complex Regional Pain Syndrome
- Pain Due To Compression Fractures From Osteoporosis
- Failed Back Syndrome Pain
- Cancer Pain
- Arachnoiditis Pain
- Abdominal Pai
Chapter One
Character is Who You Are When Nobody’s Looking
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” – Helen Keller
The winter weather matched my mood–bleak and dismal. I watched the freezing rain drizzle from the gray leaden sky outside my bedroom window. My life, as I had known it, had been ripped apart. I had been raised to believe the good Lord never gave us more than we could handle. Today, I questioned my faith. Where was God? Why didn’t He answer my prayers? I held the bottle of narcotic pain pills in my shaking hand, thinking how easy it would be to end it. But the thought of not being with my husband and not seeing my children grow up held me back.
Six months earlier in Las Vegas, when I’d bent over the pool table to stroke in the eight ball, a shooting pain rushed down my lower back and right leg. A hush fell over the crowd. The butterflies in the pit of my stomach turned to bat wings. The score was tied ten to ten. This was game point. If I made it, we’d be in the finals of the Billiard Congress of America Women’s National Eight Ball Championship. I had trouble standing up, but the place went wild when the eight ball dropped.
Suddenly and without warning everything changed for me. I watched the rain make tracks across the window pane. Joy had left me. My team had started playing for another season without me. They were going to defend the title I helped win. All I had left were memories. I stared at the phone. It didn’t ring. Most of my friends had moved on. Like the rain, a tear tracked its way down my cheek.
The pain started as a low back ache. I thought I’d pulled a muscle. When it didn’t get any better I went to see my family doctor. After many tests, he told me he couldn’t find what caused my constant pain and sent me to several specialists.
Time passed and within a few months I could barely walk without assistance. I was alone with my pain. Life went on around me as my friends and family moved on with their daily business. Each day I could physically feel and see myself deteriorating as I sat and faced my own mortality. This wasn’t living. This was existing.
Before I took a step that would be irreversible, I put the bottle of narcotic pain pills down and picked up my personal journal and started writing. Writing was the only thing I could do to help save what was left of my sanity.
