One Day At A Time

For most people including me, living with chronic pain means never knowing today what tomorrow will bring. This makes it very hard to make plans to do most things. This can be really frustrating especially in our hectic lives of today. So what can we do about this? Simply, I now live one day at a time. I take on what I can for that day and try not to worry too much about what I did not get accomplished.

A little background on me, I discovered in 2000 that I had a herniated disc in my lower back. I managed to get by with conservative therapy and exercise for some time. I would have some flare ups but by far I lived my life pretty much as I had in the past. In 2003, while walking from a parking area behind my workplace, I caught my toe in a broken piece of pavement and fell hard on my knees.

The jolt to my back was significant. I was in much more pain after that and the back and sciatic pain was constant. I tried what had worked before to calm down the situation but there was very little improvement from these methods. I had an MRI and found out that the herniation was much worse. It was impinging on the sciatic nerve. My family physician told me at that time that I needed to see a neurosurgeon quickly as the herniation could cause loss of bladder and bowel function or paralysis if it got any worse.

The surgeon recommended a laminectomy. I had that done and felt better for approximately 4 weeks. I then stood up one day felt something go pop in my back and was in horrible back pain. I called the surgeon and was seen the next day. It was so bad I could barely sit up or stand. I had to lie on my side with my legs bent at a 45 degree angle to get any kind of relief. Then I had to get further MRI's to be told they could not see a reason for my pain. I had not herniated again.

My pain levels were intense for about 2 more weeks. I was scheduled to go back to work as a massage therapist after two months post op. There was no way I could work full time in this pain. I had to cut my massage practice down to 2 days a week and hope and pray that I would be able to take care of my clients those days.

The medical mill as I called it continued for the next few months. I was sent to another surgeon for a second opinion concerning my chronic pain issues, after my original surgeon basically ignored my problems. My family physician was a major blessing for without her at that time I would have had a break down of some sort.
Several surgeons refused to see me outright as I had not been treated by them. I finally got the second opinion, and was only seen for that purpose. He basically said I can't see what is really wrong with you but I think it will be better in 2 months! What the heck??? How did he know I would be better if he could not even tell me what my problem was?

This started my journey to find a competent doctor to help me with my chronic pain issues as well as do a ton of research on back pain, back surgery, new methods of treatment including pain management, and the options that were open to me at that time.

I will continue my journey on my next blog post.