Twenty-One

It's 6:30 in the morning as I start this post. A is already gone to work, and he won't be home for at least 13 hours. That's how long he was gone yesterday. The hours are unbearable in this house, because I am alone with my pain. A read the paper this morning, showing me an article about a place in town that needed volunteers, to help sort items from donations. He shows me these things not because I'm interested, but because he hopes it might give me an idea of something to do with my time, out of the house. A neighbor came over last night to invite me over to a girls-night-out at her house, of Bunco, of socializing. I said yes to be polite, but I don't really want to go, I couldn't care less about meeting my neighbors or making new friends- but I will go and be charming and laugh and play, all the while I will be thinking how stupid these women are. One of them will probably piss me off by trying hard to convince me to come by their church on Sunday- I get that everywhere I go here in the South and it annoys the hell out of me, no pun intended. I think A is more excited about me going than I am, he was even mentioning it this morning at the breakfast table, where I sat like a dull lump, already in pain as soon as I woke up. Yesterday it was excruciating, one of my "9" days, as in on a scale of 1-10, how bad is the pain? 9 is the closest I've ever come to wishing I was dead. If I ever reach a 10 day, I just may do it, I will say fuck you pain you won't win. Two days ago I started to try and wean myself off my pain medication. I started out at 3 pills a day, now the doctor has me up to 8 a day and another one at night to knock me completely out. Over vacation, everyone seemed aghast at how often I took the pills, while I was still in pain even with 8 a day. I see how people become addicts so easily. I could, if the pills were available to me in unlimited quantities, and I didn't have to lie or cheat or steal to get them, because that's not in my nature to break the law to get something I want. My pain medication is not a narcotic and as far as I'm concerned it doesn't do much more than any over the counter drug, although while we were away, my mother slipped me a full bottle of Vicodin that she had, unused from a recent dental surgery. I will horde them away for the really bad days. I just used my last Vicodin two weeks ago, and even taking those did nothing for my pain. I don't have a prescription for them, but I get them from relatives who have them leftover from their own medical procedures. I have a bottle with five Valium left, too, but they also have little affect on me. Those were from a medical procedure I signed up for but didn't go through with, no refills. I have no desire to go back to the pain clinic, and I won't, I didn't like the doctor and he wouldn't write my pills for more than 30 days at a time, so screw him, I'm not running in there every 4 weeks just to get a refill for shit that doesn't even work. So I have no refills on my current pain medication, both of which are meds used for nerve damage and pain. I take 2400 mgs a day of one, and no relief. I take 200 mg a day of another med used to treat moderate neuropathic pain. Even adding four of these a day to my routine two months ago has given me very little relief. On top of my prescribed pain pills I take Aleve and Tylenol and Motrin like it was free. Nothing helps. Sometimes heat does, but only as long as I am in the scalding hot water of the bath tub or applying a heating pad directly to my skin- once I remove the heat, the pain returns almost instantly. Last night I took my pain pills, and a sleeping pill, and went to bed with my iPod on and a heating pad under my hip. Sometimes music distracts my brain long enough that I don't notice the pain as much, but last night it was so bad that even that old trick didn't work. This morning I am already at a 7, and I know a 9 is not far off from finding me. It sucks, I hate it, and the pain has changed my personality SO much in the three+ years since I hurt my back. I've gone the medical route, going to pain clinics and having injections of medication directly into my spine. Nothing has worked. So now I am going to go to a chiropractor, as soon as I can find a reputable one with a long-standing practice, and not some quack with a sign up in a shopping center window. I've never been to one, because until I hurt my back I never needed one, but I watched my parents and my sibling all go to one all their lives, as a regular part of their routine. An adjustment here, a quick pop there, and they were on their way. I have avoided one so far because I wanted to see a real doctor first. Yes, I know chiropractors all over the world will tell you they are doctors, and my best friend from high school is even a chiropractor. But I don't know anyone who has only gone to a chiropractor just once- it becomes a habit, like flossing your teeth or washing your hands after you pee. I just didn't want to jump on that carousel, not able to get off. I think it has come to that, I am desperate to try anything, because the pain has only become worse now that I'm not at an office all day long. I try to stay active here around the house, because sitting only antagonizes the pain. I want the pain to go away completely, and I want to feel better again, and if that means some dude popping my back or hooking me up to a machine that will stretch my spine (what my dad gets done, and swears by it), then I am to that point. Everyone I know loves their chiropractor, so maybe I am finally ready to fall in love with a new man, too. A feels terrible because he can't do anything for my pain, this is one thing he can't fix. He asks me ten times a night, is there anything I can do, anything I can get you, can I rub your back, your feet? He is equally desperate for me to feel better. If a chiropractor doesn't work, then I will try acupuncture, or yoga, I don't care. I will let them run me through a meat grinder somewhere if only the pain will go away, I can't take it anymore. I am only in my 40's, I can't live another 30 years like this, I will either go insane or I will kill myself. It is that bad. I want my old personality back, the one where I smiled and meant it, the one where I could keep up when A and I went places, the one where I didn't lose patience with my cat for rubbing up against me and wanting attention, the one where I liked my life, all life. I haven't felt any of that since the pain took over everything, every movement, every thought, wiping out anything else I might feel. I only feel the pain. Today I already can barely move, and I dread the housework that looms ahead of me today- laundry, cleaning the kitchen- things that will, for me, be almost impossible to accomplish because I can't even bend over to pick up a dirty sock off the floor. A helps around the house as much as he can, since he is hardly ever here that is very little. But he shouldn't have to, he works 60+ hours a week in order for us to afford our life, and the man shouldn't have to wash his own clothes, too. That's why he has a wife, and one who stays home all day long. I've tried to explain to him how bad the pain is, and when I told him I am to a point where I don't want to wake up in the mornings, I think he thought I meant I want to sleep in longer. I meant, I don't want to wake up, at all. If that's what it takes for me to stop feeling this agonizing pain, then I am to that point. I know my physical pain plays a role in my great emotional pain, and my growing depression. There are a lot of things I could be doing here at this house while unemployed. But the physical pain keeps me from most of it, so the mental anguish gets deeper. If a chiropractor doesn't help me, I don't know where to turn to next. The possibility of that scares the shit out of me. SO many friends and family members have told me their miracle stories about the chiropractor, I have to hold out some hope. I am at the end of my rope, though, and I am ready to hang myself with it.