red velvet is soft
feels heavenly on my skin
distracts from my pain
Teresa (Tessa) Dean Smeigh
-Advocate for Mental and Invisible Illnesses
-Author of Articles, Stories and Poems
http://www.finallyawriter.wordpress.com (moving posts to other blog and will be deleting this one).
This is so true. If you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all. Our parents were right!
I started this trip at the ER. My first stop after the station was the orthopedic dr. There the original hope he gave me was snatched back and I was back on the tracks leading to pain management with not a lot of hope to travel with me. Appointments are hard to get and I have to wait. The longer I wait the worse it gets physically and mentally. I am finding it hard not to just give up hope that I will ever be pain-free again. I haven’t been for 40 years (and longer if you count my childhood problems), so where’s the miracle cure going to come from? How do I find that miracle I so much want to believe in.
The closer that appointment comes the more anxiety is building up. I have been told by the dr’s office that this train could veer off the tracks to another track leading to a neurosurgeon rather than just pain management out of which I will probably end up addicted to narcotics if the steroid shots don’t work and they weren’t very successful 7 years ago. I still lived in pain, just a lesser amount. You know they make sure you understand that those shots can make it better, make it worse or simply not work. My neck responded for almost 7 years with very little flare-ups, but my back did not respond at all and continually got worse. The chiropractor was supposed to help, but I cannot say he did really. He claimed he could fix all of my problems and without medications. Of course he pushed expensive nutrients, but no prescription medications. I finally had to tell him that he needed either to try something different or our relationship was over because I was worse off after an adjustment and simply suffered to the next appointment. So he tried to be gentler. I went less often and then this whole mess flared into a much worse situation. When I heard I had several pinched nerves I refused to have him mess with them. Part of me said one wrong movement and he could paralyze me. My faith in chiropractic care is not very strong and when you start messing with damaged nerves it scares me a lot.
This brings me to the religious part. I don’t understand what all this means in God’s plan for me. Back to am I being punished for some past sin, maybe one from another life if you believe in past lives (reincarnation)?
I am thankful to be alive, but I can’t find it in my heart to be thankful I am alive to suffer. I know pain is subjective. I know that some people have it much worse than I, but right now I am focused on me and how I feel. I can pray for others and their pain and suffering and I pray for mine, but it sure is harder when the pain is never gone, always getting worse.
Am I feeling sorry for myself? You bet I am and most of us do in this situation except for a few who get past this point without feeling sorry for themselves and have put all their faith in God. This is one of the reasons I gave up on God for 40 years. I don’t understand the suffering that is in this world or the killing either for that matter. What is it supposed to accomplish. I have been told God doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle. So this proves that I am stronger so heap on the pain?
You know I can’t lie, sit or stand without pain. There is nowhere to escape it. The pain pills are either not working or I am getting used to them and they don’t work as well. I can tell when they are about to wear off. I wake up almost to the hour they are due again.
I still have a week and a half before my pain management appointment. I will run out of pain medicine on that day as well or maybe the day before if I miscalculated which I will figure out closer to the date so I can spread them out if need be.
Tessa Can Do It hardly seems the right name for this blog right now. Will I do it, of course I will, I am stronger than I give myself credit for and for the simple fact I have no choice. I will not take that final step to end my misery because I promised my family and friends I would not do that again. God saved me then, he must have some other plans for me. There will, however, be many tears shed in the next few months or so depending on how things go because sometimes the pain is unbearable despite the pain pills.
God be with me as with you and I pray for any of you who are in similar situations and are dealing with your own pain, whatever that pain may be. God bless us all!!
Teresa (Tessa) Dean Smeigh
-Advocate for Mental and Invisible Illnesses
-Author of Articles, Stories and Poems
http://www.finallyawriter.wordpress.com (moving posts to other blog and will be deleting this one).
Tessa Can Do It - Positivity is Everything! 