Shattered Glass

When I first decided to write this blog, it was supposed to be a humorous account of my ongoing foot pain. I'd written several chapters of what I hope will someday be a book and I thought this would be a great place to get those thoughts written and read on a regular basis. But the truth is, through the years, my "broken glass" has grown to affect so much more than my feet. For starters, I don't usually feel physically well enough to write anything very clever or funny. The other thing is that since I have so much body-wide pain it's not always possible to sit here and write anything worthy of being enjoyably read by others.
So I have reached into the depths of my pain-filled body and made a decision to write more often and write shorter accounts of my day and whatever comes with it. My blogs won't necessarily be linked to these awful feet, but trust me when I tell you the foot pain is always here! My future blogs will reflect more of what my days are like. The good, the bad and the ugly. Honestly, these days when the rest of my body hurts so badly, I tend to forget about my foot pain. As much as I wanted the foot pain to stop controlling my life, this is definitely NOT the way I wanted it to happen.
Now. About that body-wide pain. What's that all about? Physically, I'm a well person. I lead a very active and happy life. I do lots of volunteer work, though not nearly as much as I would if I had less pain or feet that moved faster and without pain. No illness. No disease. I don't have anything that I will die from; although I sometimes feel like the pain will certainly kill me! That's a joke, of course, but sometimes one has to wonder, how much longer can I take this?
I went to a new pain management doctor recently and she asked me to describe where the pain is worse. I laughed, holding up a few strands of hair while telling her her it starts right at the tip end of my hair shaft and ends at the very tip of my longest toe. And everywhere in between. I laughingly refer to my husband as "batman" because I swear that during the night he grips a baseball bat and beats the crap out of me. That's how I feel most mornings when I wake up - including today. Either that or like a bus ran over me.  A BIG bus! But the batman joke is absurd because, if it were not for my lovingly helpful and understanding husband, I don't know how I would deal with all of this pain. In spite of the fact that he has his own pain demons to wrangle (at 17, we were in the same car wreck so the theory is that's where all the long term damage comes from), he's always here for me. He takes excellent care of me! He "gets" me. That's so helpful.
The results of my MRIs confirmed what I'd been telling my new doctor - and worse. She just sat there, shaking her head and asked, "How do you even function day-to-day, much less come bouncing in here, always looking so pretty and vibrant?"  Basically, my MRIs showed damage from the top of my cervical spine, through the thoracic spine, lumbar and all the way to my tailbone. Although I have damaged discs in every part of my spine, it's the arthritis that has progressed through the years to close the opening of the spinal column, therefore causing all this intense pain. The doctor reminded me that she treats pain patients all day every day. She said that most of her patients come in looking like hell. Yet, she explained that her treatment decisions are made based on what she sees in the framework - in the MRIs - and mine are one huge mess. She has several plans for making me feel better but it will take time. Also, she's concerned that there is a lot of permanent nerve damage - irreversible and hard to treat in those areas. But she will do all that she can to help ease my pain with all the might that modern pain management science can deliver. The eventual hope is that she can "kill off" the nerve endings that cause most of the foot pain.  But she says that for now, she has much more severe spinal damage to tend to. So, regardless of how much she can accomplish, I know I have a lot to look forward to.
In the meantime, I continue to get all dressed up, get my hair and makeup just right and "bounce around" as my body allows. I accept the things I cannot change, change the things I can and I for pray wisdom to know the difference. Please trust me when I tell you that my serenity prayer has nothing at all to do with alcohol but everything to do with the pain that I've somehow ended up with.
So I must move on to soak in a whirlpool and do whatever else I can to make today easier. But despite the pain, I love my life. I've been so blessed with good things that I consider my pain a small price to pay for all the goodness I have in my life.
So I'll leave you with one parting word. OUCH!