pain
[peyn] Show IPA
noun
1.
physical suffering or distress, as due to injury, illness, etc.
2.
3.
mental or emotional suffering or torment: I am sorry my news causes you such pain.
4.
pains.
a.
laborious or careful efforts; assiduous care: Great pains have been taken to repair the engineperfectly.
b.
the suffering of childbirth.
5.
Informal. an annoying or troublesome person or thing.
I have been contemplating this one for a while. I don't want to get in a habit of writing depressing and negative things. The whole point of this journey is to express what I have been dealing with and a big part of it is pain. But there are many joyous things that I am experiencing mingled with the pain. There has been a lot of growth within myself. So why am I writing about pain today? Quite bluntly I have been in A LOT of physical pain for the last couple of weeks and it feels like that is all I can think about. All encompassing and obsessive.
A few weeks ago I had to deal with some upsetting news, Kristie dropped me as a patient. I don't want to go into details. I will say I am grateful for the help she gave me and I feel that a purpose was served with our relationship, however, I think it was completely all business on her end and I felt there was more of a friendship, which made the entirety of it all that much more difficult. So there was some emotional pain.
Then my stomach starting giving me trouble again. Not the intestinal section, the pain I have been dealing with in my lower right portion of my stomach, drs have attributed it to scar tissue caused from all of my stomach surgeries.
I was hoping the pain was only for a couple of days, induced by stress or something. But it kept getting worse and I refused to go back on all of those long term pain medications. After deliberating with my pain specialist, and another pain dr in the office, we decided a new course of action. I have been off of chronic pain meds since April and will not go back on them.
A couple of days later I was in the office having numbing medication injected into the area of pain. I thought I had been hurting, but that was crazy bad. I ended up in the ER within a day. The following Monday I was being injected with a nerve numbing agent in T11 and T12. It was immediate relief and I was so grateful. The doctor explained that it could be permanent but that the medication was meant to only last for 6 hours. So I would know by Monday night if I needed the permanent medication, a kyro medication. Long story short I was on the table Tuesday morning for the permanent medication which is supposed to last about 6 months.
With two epidural shots in T11 and T12 they froze the nerve endings on my lower right abdominal wall. That pain has been relieved and I am just recovering from the process of the epidural.
Blessings come in many forms and I have been blessed again with great doctors who were inspired to look at my situation with fresh eyes.
Pain is hard. It comes in many forms, some temporary, some permanent. I was in moments of great despair, crying and begging for relief.
Everyone deals with Pain differently. Some takes time, some takes strength beyond our means. I spent much time praying for strength to get through the hardest of times so that I could make it to the end where the pain would be relieved. My pain was physical but took a great toll on me mentally.
Last week my brother in law arrived home after a 6+ month deployment to Quatar. My sister and their 4 children missed him terribly and there were some really tough times for all of them. I can't imagine having Brian gone for even 1/3 of that. But we are all able to deal with things that others can't.
Last night I found out that a young man who attended school with Sadie and Hunter passed away. He drowned while out with his family. I can't even bare the thought of losing a child. This is by far one of my biggest if not THE biggest fear that I have.
There is also the fear of the unknown or of what may come but not knowing when. For instance, my dad and his cancer. He has dealt with chemo okay so far, but he had also had to deal with blood clots in his arm and now a skin infection(at least that is what we think). The oncologist has told us that we may have 7-10 years with dad with this cancer. Having an end date really sucks. Any of us can be taken at a moments notice, but I think I would rather not have that date looming over my head.
There are ways of dealing with the pain. I can only say the ways I have dealt with the pain I have personally experienced. I am so grateful to have a loving Heavenly Father who I know hears and answers my prayers, not always in the way I want them, but He does.
I am so blessed to have Brian at my side. The poor guy would wake up in the middle of the night to me laying in bed crying and just hold me and love me. I hate having to take people to the hospital. All the waiting and everything else that comes with it. But every time I give him the word, he is there 100%, maybe not with a smile, but he is there to take me, wait with me, wait for me, and love me back to health.
My kids are the greatest. They are so patient and understanding. I just can't say enough how blessed I am to have them.
This may seem like nothing to some but to me it is everything. I am so grateful for my dogs. Especially my lab. She is always at my side, unconditional love. She is getting old and I know the day will come where I will only have memories of her, but I am so grateful to have her with me as I am finding joy in this part of my journey.
So grateful for wonderful neighbors and friends. We ran into a pinch in the middle of the injections and all it took was a phone call and we were rescued by wonderful loving arms of friends whom I will be eternally grateful for.
I am so grateful for where I live. I would love to the travel the world some day, but I am so proud to be an American, so grateful for the men and women who fight to protect the freedoms that I enjoy, most days without batting an eye at them.
I could go on and on, tend to be long winded if you have'nt noticed yet. As I mentioned before, there is growth and learning while dealing with the pain. I am trying to be grateful for my pains.
