Oh, how fun a good dose of pain can be!
I, for once, was sleeping at 4:00am so I didn't take a tablet of Oxycontin. I usually get up when my wife gets up for work and take one then. I am supposed to take one every eight hours and the schedule I'm on seems to work best for me so when I miss one I go without until the scheduled time for the next one. Since I went without one tablet today, I experienced a little rise in pain and managed it okay.
That was until about 5:00pm when I went outside and helped my son take apart the old mailbox so we could throw it away. It was a ten or fifteen minute job while I sat in a chair and stooped over to the ground undoing screws. In that sort amount of time, whatever it is that causes my knife-stabbing groin pain, caused it to flare up and within those few minutes my pain level went way up. I took a Norco tablet and got into a hot bath. Even with those two, the pain is tremendous.
There is nothing to describe what it is really like to live with pain twenty four hours a day with no end in sight. This is not, "Oh, I strained a muscle," nor is it, "Oh, I have a bruise." It isn't even like, "Ow, I had teeth pulled." The reason is that with all of those you can have some comfort when you think that it will all feel better soon.
Pain can be like an annoying family member that comes to visit you. You smile and tolerate their crap. You even pretend like you don't mind their visit, but all the while you keep glancing at the clock knowing that in a few hours they'll take their crap and head out the front door. Chronic pain is having that annoying bastard move in, take over your room, eat all of your food, run up all your utility bills, and take control of the TV remote. They even snore like grunting pigs all night so you can't sleep on the already uncomfortable floor.
Even on my morphine at total of 120mg a day, i can end up with horrible pain. Last Wednesday i ended up in the emergency room cause it literally felt like someone pulled my hip out of its socket. I signed a pain management agreement and that i am not supposed to take more then prescribed. I took two of my "emergency morphines" with no help. My pain, and crying from the pain woke my brother up on the other side of the house. We have a bathroom between us, he came and asked what was wrong. THrough my hard cries, i told it was my back and pain in my hip, he took me to the ER.. all they did there was shoot me up with Demerol. I was in a very thick fog for 3 days after that.
ReplyDeleteSeems like there is nothing that will stop it when it gets horrible.