I haven't written in my blog for a while. Not because I haven't been reading, but because I haven't had the mind to write a review for a while. My brain has been a bit mushy lately.
I’m not sure how many people understand what it’s like to be in pain 24/7. I’m not sure how many people can actually grasp what that means. People look at me and think, “she looks fine.” And because I’m not screaming out that I’m in pain every second of every day, they think that I really am fine. On the days that I go to the doctor and have to spend the entire day in bed, they think, “oh, that’s nice for her that she takes a day to herself to relax. I wish I could do that. I don’t have time to take a day a week to myself, though, because I have responsibilities.” I know people think this because they’ve said those words to me in the past. All I can do is look at them, too flabbergasted to even respond.
What I should say is this… Yes, it’s nice that you think that I choose to take a day for myself to relax. The reality is that if I don’t stay down all day, I don’t survive the week. If I could go to the doctor every day, I would. If I could not have pain, I would. If I could be normal, I WOULD!
I’m sorry that you can’t SEE my pain. I’m sorry that I can’t let you feel what it’s like to have pain every second of every day. I’m sorry that I’ve gotten so good at not crying every second. I’m sorry that I care so much more for everyone else that I never say no to people when they ask me for things. Because I don’t want to disappoint anyone, because I disappoint myself too much as it is.
No, I don’t ever feel like leaving my house. But I do. No, I don’t feel like going to the grocery, the doctor, or a movie. But I do. No, I don’t feel like visiting with people. But I do. No, I don’t feel like getting out of bed. But I do. No, I’m not screaming out loud every second of every day, but I wish I could.
Driving over a speedbump, for most people, is like a minor inconvenience. Driving over a speedbump for me is like someone is taking a spear and jabbing it down my spine from the base of my skull all the way down my back. Hitting a dip in the road, or a pothole, or going over a set of railroad tracks, all of those do the same thing. So, when I’m out on the road, driving and I have to slow down to go over a speedbump, and people get so damn irritated they honk and flip me off… It’s just one more person telling me what I tell myself every day… just go die already.
I can promise you the reasons I haven’t just gone and died already are my children. They need me, and I need them. They are the only ones who see me in pain every day and can actually see what I go through because they live with me. They’ve seen what happens when I’m not able to rest after the doctor’s visit every week. They’ve felt the sting of my outbursts when I’m in so much pain, and someone asking me, “Mom, where’s the milk?” sets me off because I just can’t handle one more thing.
My body just can’t take any more stress than it is already under, every damn day.
And yet, here I am. Still going. Still trying. Still here.
Part of that motivation comes from the fact that I’ve already survived so much. I survived being a sick child. I survived being molested. I survived having my neck broken. I survived the monster I married. I survived all the times I was raped. I survived being raised in a cult. I survived the first car accident, and the second, and the third. I survived because of sheer will. I survived because I’ve already lived through so much. I survive because it’s what the fuck I do.
I write because it’s the only thing I can do when I feel like I can do it. I can’t be an accountant whenever I feel like it. No one hires someone who says, “and by the way, I have pain and a headache 100% of the time, and sometimes that prevents me from moving, so I can’t come in on a schedule. I can only come in when I can, and that’s for about fifteen minutes at a time.” No one wants to work with a person like that.
Like right now, I sit at my computer, writing all of this down. But my head is throbbing. My blood pressure is so high that I can hear my heartbeat in my ears. It also feels as though someone’s hand is gripping my spine—like their hand is wrapped around C-1 – C-7 just holding my spine, waiting to snap my neck. My arms are both numb, and I can only feel my pinky finger on each hand because my hands are numb as well. It makes it difficult to type, but I do it because I’d rather sit here in pain than be in bed. That’s not actually true, I’d rather be in bed, but I’ve been in bed so much because the pain keeps winning that I don’t want it to win today.
I’ve got things I need to do. I’ve got piles of clothes that need to be taken to Goodwill or somewhere so that someone can use them. I’ve got heaps of laundry that needs to be done so that I’ll have clean clothes to wear. The sink is filled with dishes again because dishes and laundry are never-ending. I’ve got floors that need to be swept and mopped and tubs that need to be scrubbed. I’ve got floors that need to be vacuumed. I’ve got things that need to be packed up or thrown away because I just don’t need them anymore. I’ve got so much that needs to be done. What I don’t have is the ability to get it all done.
It takes me about a month to accomplish those things. Because I also have a yard that has to be cut twice a week. I have a self-propelled lawnmower, which helps because then my arms go numb slower. They still go numb, but I can finish cutting the yard before they do. If it weren’t self-propelled, they’d go numb after a row or two.
See, the ligaments and muscles in my neck are all ripped and torn. The ligaments were stretched so far in the first accident that it saved my life in the last, though it also made those ligaments completely useless. Had the ligaments not been stretched as far as they could go in the first accident, I would have been decapitated in the last accident. Yes, those are the words the doctor used… decapitated. Because the force of the crash was that bad. I was going the speed limit of 35mph. The lady who nearly killed my children and I was going at least 55mph, making the crash itself a 90 mph accident.
I saw it coming. I turned my head because the last thing on this planet I was going to look at was my children. The image in my mind was Fred Flintstone, pushing his feet down and stopping his car. I thought my feet would go through the bottom of the vehicle and stop it. I slammed my feet down on the brakes. I looked into the back seat. I saw, in slow motion, my daughter’s hands and head going forward. I saw her little body move in ways little bodies shouldn’t move. And then she was gone, in my view was my son, who had been sitting behind me, and then he too was just gone.
The next thing I knew was the screaming. All I could hear was screaming. And somehow, though I’d looked over my right shoulder to look at my children, somehow, I was now looking out the driver’s window. What I didn’t know then was that the airbag had gone off and punched me so hard in the head that it threw my head and twisted it in the opposite direction. Ripping those ligaments and muscles to their breaking point. The first accident had torn the ligaments and muscles from C-1 – C-3; this accident ripped C-4 – C-6. By the way, those ligaments are now calcified.
After the first accident, I was told that I wouldn’t be able to move my neck at all in ten years. After the third accident, I was put in a neck brace and told, don’t ever take it off. For five years, I didn’t. I got so sick of the neck brace that I would feel like I would vomit when I put it on. I was sick of needing it. But I still wore it. I still wear it now, but not as much as I’m supposed to. But that’s out of stubbornness. I don’t want to need it. I don’t want to have to have it.
I can say that the neck brace is why the disks in my neck aren’t complete mush, though. I already have some arthritis peeking its ugly head in my neck, but it’s not so bad that we can call it arthritis just yet.
Here is the list of my medically diagnosed issues/conditions for those that don’t already know.
Mild-traumatic brain injury / post-concussion syndrome
32 lesions and a scar on my brain
Migraine with status migrainosus
fibromyalgia
chronic fatigue syndrome
Chronic pain syndrome
Left Subacromial bursitis
Left Thoracic outlet syndrome
Muscle inflammation
Muscle pain
Chronic headache
Inflammation of rib cartilage
Impingement syndrome of shoulder
Bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome
This is the list you see when you look at my health summary of current health issues. I have seen over 40 doctors. It took years to get the proper diagnosis. It took years of medicines to finally figure out that none of them work. It took years and years to find something that takes the pain and tells it to sit in the corner for a while. It’s always there, it’s never gone, but it will shut up for a little bit, IF I go to the doctor once a week and that doctor pushes C-1 back where it’s supposed to be.
The fire in my neck has officially reached the point where I can type no longer. The ringing in my ears is so loud that it’s time to let the bed win again. I try not to cry about it, though, because that just makes the headache that I’ve had since 7/13/2009 that much worse.
