A Dark Side Dawn Post- Written 3/26/13

I wrote this 3/26/13. Waited to post it until I could follow it with a more positive post, on 4/9/13. http://dawninger.blogspot.com/2013/04/16-weeks-past-surgery-still-struggling.html



I haven't journal-ed in so long because I struggled with putting out positive thoughts rather than negative. I felt if I wrote about the negative, I gave it power.  Now I see that negativity is blocking the positive. I have to get it out.

Living with pain takes strength, courage, and stamina. I'm running out of stamina.

I have stopped pain medications in part because I don't want the harmful side effects, but also because I thought I could learn to live with pain as a new normal. For the most part, this has worked. It has worked so well, those living around me have no idea what I'm going through. It works until I break from the strain.

Last night I broke. My emotional scar was ripped open when I was reminded how beyond help I really am. I can feel those who love me and want to help anyway they can, but the truth is they can't even come close. Professional medical help has no vested interest in helping me and they don't have any answers either.

My body is failing me. Trigeminal Neuralgia has given me almost constant facial pain. Tegretol has removed the lightening strikes, but I'm left dealing with constant head and facial aches. A doctor would suggest I take more drugs, but that method is a path that runs in a circle, always bringing me back to where I'd have to take more and more medication.

The nerve in my leg and foot seems permanently damaged from my spinal injury. My back is doing better, but recovery is so very slow. My nerve damage really hasn't seemed to change much at all. My foot constantly feels like its encased in a block of ice. If I stretch my leg, the pain reminds me of my limitations. A few times, it even starts to feel like that scary, awful day I wish to forget, but thankfully it stops before it reaches that level of hell. Perhaps I haven't given myself enough time to heal, although its probably safe to assume the disc material scraped off the myelin coating on my nerve. That protective coating won't come back. I'm suppose to give this "a year or two" to see if anything changes. If it doesn't, I'm forever damaged goods.

I have anger inside I haven't let go of. In it's calmer form, they call it depression. I can usually tuck this away, but when my stamina is failing, it rears up and roars.