That Hopeless Feeling

I know someone at work who is watching his daughter go through hell. Apparently there is a messy divorce and a terrible fight over the child from this now-broken union, and he is suffering, his daughter is really suffering and his grandchild is suffering - or will be. There is no way to come out of that without extra baggage that no one needs.

I heard myself saying to my coworker that while I cannot imagine on any level what she is going through, having been in a very happy relationship for over 17 years, I do understand on a very personal level the despair, the hopelessness, that she is feeling. It is an ugly, ugly thing.

My situation is nothing like that, and logically, I feel that there must be a solution, an end to this, but right now, after a full nine days of intense torturous pain, the hopelessness has set in. Last Wednesday I began to have painful back muscle spasms. And not just one muscle that would tighten up for a while, but really, really intense spasms all over the lower thoracic and lumber regions. If you are that interested, you can dig for the very detailed posting about my accident on 1 September 2001. That was the start of it.

This has nothing to do with the muscular dystrophy.

Last Friday (not yesterday) I finally went to the doctor. He twisted me like a pretzel a couple of times, then prescribed... oh, what the hell is it? Wait a second... no, I can't go look - the cat is very happily curled up against my right leg and I just can't dislodge her for that. (That's Ariel - Chelsea never wants to lay next to me when she can lay on me!) Anyway, this stuff is unbelievable. Turns my muscles into total jelly - including my brain (it knocks me out). So now I'm joking with everyone that my brain is a muscle! [The cat got up and now I can find it - carisoprodol - don't let yourself get stuck taking this. Yikes!]
The timing is poor, as well (not that there is ever a good time for this...) with the refrigerator and freezer having died.

Well. Nothing has improved. I have managed to put in mostly full days at work; this week I worked about 35 hours, quite a change from my normal 50. I love my job but sitting there in agonising pain is not okay and not worth it. So I have been leaving early most days (Thursday with all its disasters was a nine-hour day. If I'd only known what that was going to bring...). Every time I have left, it has been in excruciating pain. After over a week of this, it is very difficult to not think that this is my life. That I will always be in pain. That feeling...

...of total hopelessness.

Comments

CrystalChick said…
Hang in there my new blog buddy.... my husband has been taken by ambulance a couple of times for back spasms. He's not the kind of guy to complain much about things, but that pain was insane. I haven't had them myself but know from his experience part of what you must be going thru. Not only was he taking the same medicine you are, but add some oxycodone and you can imagine his drugged state. He's also had cortisone injections, depending on the severity when those muscles spasm.
All I can say is he DID improve! The spasms still come occasionally but much fewer and further between and he feels happy and healthy most of the time. He's having a monthly maintenance with a chiropractor and that helps him.
Thinking of you! :)
25 August 2007 at 11:45
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Interesting Aftermath a From Season Five of "MasterChef"

Image
Do I agree with this? You will have to read it first and decide for yourself. I had long since made up my mind before finding this article. MasterChef Season 5 Fixed: Courtney Lapresi Won Finale After Getting Preferential Treatment – Former Stripper Favoritism BY  STORMY ELIZABETH  ON SEPTEMBER 23, 2014 "They say if you can’t take the heat, you should get out of the kitchen, but what if you like it hot? If you’ve been watching  MasterChef this season 5 , you may have noticed that one contestant in particular seems to  be “winning” challenges  when her dishes don’t seem to be quite up to it.  Courtney Lapresi  has been billed as an “aerial dancer” on the show. So what exactly is that, you ask? It’s a fancy word for stripper. You may term what she does as burlesque, but nekked is nekked and she takes off her  clothes  when she dances, so you have to call them as you see them. Plus is it really fair that she’s up for a MasterChef win aft
Read more

A.W.A.D. - 14-Letter Words, 14-Letter Definitions

Back in 1994, when I founded Wordsmith.org on a Pi Day (March 14), I had no idea that one day we'd be celebrating its quadridecennial. Here's what the last 14 years look in numbers: So far we have sent out 3,782 unique words and 297 AWADmail compilations to 640,000 present subscribers in 200 countries, that is more than 1.6 billion pieces of email. Well, this week we're seeing all things 14. We'll feature words that are 14 letters long, and define each of them in 14 letters. acritochromacy (uh-KRIT-o-kro-muh-see) noun Color blindness. [From Greek akritos (undistinguishing) + chroma (color).] tintinnabulate (tin-ti-NAB-yuh-layt) verb intr. To ring; to tinkle. [From Latin tintinnabulum (bell), from tintinnare (to jingle).] tinctumutation (tinkt-myoo-TAY-shuhn) noun Change of colour. [From Latin tinctus (a dyeing) + mutation (changing).] Brobdingnagian (brob-ding-NAG-ee-uhn) adjective Of gigantic size. [After Brobdingnag, the fictional region where everything was enormous
Read more

An Interesting Wife Swap...

Image
I'm catching up on our Wife Swap recordings. I'm watching the epiode Burroughs/Padovan-Hickman one that aired on 17 April 2009. The one I watched just before was really quite satisfying - the families both learned a lot and seemed to really take it to heart. This one, however, is back to the familiar mold of putting families that are so totally diametrically opposite families together that they almost can't get along. This is interesting, though, because the Padovan-Hickmans have electricity but don't use it, don't flush often, go for a week without showering and then the whole family uses the same bathwater... I can see where that would be hard, especially for me in that I have very oily skin and hair and would look rather wretched after the next day. But the family themselves are very likable and fun, the father looks more like a kindly grandfather, but really is quite intelligent and pleasant. I would have trouble with the clean thing and I'd miss my iPod
Read more