Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Pain and Life as a Chronic Pain Sufferer

Hello readers,

I wasn’t going to blog today, and haven’t for the last few days because my pain levels have been extremely high. I read Graceful Agony’s blog pretty much every day, and she inspired me to blog today.

I would say that today is an 8 on the 1 to 10 pain scale. After a disagreement with a dear friend for the past few days, stress played a part in this, and now I seem to have yet another sinus infection which has my head aching in just a lovely way.

I don’t know about you all, but over the years of living with chronic pain, I have had to work really hard on NOT talking about my pain. I have found that after a rather short period of time, the general population tunes you out if you keep talking about what you have to deal with on a daily basis. They also look at you as if you are whining, or a complainer, hypochondriac, or attention seeker. I have learned to just keep quiet about my pain and keep pushing forward. Jolene is slowly showing me that there are people out there that actually get it. Other people who are suffering the same way I am, and people who actually have a heart for and understand the pain we live in.

I’m not really sure how I feel about this. Part of me is happy to know that I’m not alone, part of me is sad that others suffer like I do, and another part of me is jealous of those who actually have people in their direct lives that “get it”. I don’t…well, yes, I have one friend who “gets it”, and that’s because she herself suffers with daily health struggles.

For me, refusing to give in until the pain is so bad that it reduces me to a dark, quiet room with an ice pack, is just a way of life. There is never a day that I don’t hurt somewhere, and more often than not it’s more than one thing that hurts. I have never ending pain in my right hip that flares sometimes to the point of making it impossible to find a comfortable position. Sitting, standing, laying down, all of them hurt. My head almost always aches to a certain degree. Today, on my 1 to 10 pain scale (which, mind you is quite different than the ones you see in the dr’s office with a smiley face on one end and a crying face on the other), my head is at about a 4. My pain scale might look something like this if I could create one:

OWOWWOWWWOWWWWOWWWWWOWWWWWWOWWWWWWWOWWWWWWWW......

So, if you notice, there never really is a smiley face, and 10 is in rigor mortis, you might begin to understand the difference between a “normal” person’s pain scale and a chronic sufferer’s scale.

I think the thing that bothers me the most is that they refer to chronic pain sufferers…particularly those with Fibromyalgia…as being HYPER sensative to pain. Really? Well, I think that if a normal person felt like Mr. Froggy #2 they would debate about whether to go to work or school or whatever that day, and if they felt like Mr. Froggy #10 they would be hospitalized. Funny how we HYPER sensative folks function at Mr. Froggy #3 or #4’s level on a daily basis, and Mr Froggy #1 is a GOOD day to us.

Ok, well I’ve had enough fun with frogs today. Just wanted to post something in response to Jolene’s blog this morning. I look forward to seeing those of you that do get this in the upcoming chat room! And for those of you that don’t get this…consider yourself flies. :P

[Via http://joyfulferrets.wordpress.com]

No comments:

Post a Comment