Month: June 2018

The weeks following my surgery slowly trickled by. At this point, the one thing I was certain of was I still had pain. No matter what the doctor said or what procedure he had done, I knew I was the one hurting each and every day. As hours turned into days and days into weeks, I started noticing something. Something was blatantly different. I was different. My thinking was different.

I guess I’d gotten to the point in my journey were I started feeling weak. I was exhausted both physically and mentally. I felt I no longer had the strength to continue fighting the doctors, the pain, and the loss of myself. My pity parties were lasting longer. My tears were unending. My hope was dwindling. I was sinking. Sinking into that dark place I never wanted to visit again. For the first time in my life, I felt like I’d hit rock bottom.

And that’s when my a-ha moment happened. It was like the wind in my sail had been totally silenced. I was giving up. It made having pity parties so much easier. I’d lost the strength to continue fighting the pain day in and day out. I’d lost the strength to deal with arrogant doctors who pretended my pain wasn’t really there. My self-esteem was gone. Like a bird flying south. GONE! My daily talks with God went from prayers of healing to prayers for Him to take me home. In my mind, being home meant I wouldn’t have pain, and my family wouldn’t have to worry about me anymore.

During this time, I became silent. A recluse even more than usual. I was mad because I was going to have to use my crutches for 5 weeks. I was mad because I would then have to wear a boot for over 8 weeks. Nothing, nothing at all, had gone as planned, and I was beyond frustrated. (Pity party at its finest!) My attitude was getting the best of me and that led me to losing hope. I just wanted to be done. Done with doctor’s appointments, done with doctors, done with medicine, done with people judging, done with pain. DONE. DONE. DONE.

While at rock bottom, I realized the only way out was up. If the doctors couldn’t help me, I needed to do something to help myself? As most chronic pain patients will tell you, it’s exhausting talking to doctors when they have absolutely no idea of what you are going through. It’s frustrating when they don’t believe you or know anything about your illness. It’s disheartening how they can make you feel like a freak and how they attribute your pain to being anxious or overwhelmed. I’d experienced this for two years now, and my patience was immensely thin. My sadness was deep. I honestly didn’t know how I was going to continue fighting this fight. But I knew I needed to move upward.

Thankfully, God didn’t answer my prayers. As I awoke each morning, I began realizing He wanted me here. His plans for me were bigger than me. I had to do something to start rising from the bottom. Although I couldn’t change the circumstances I was in, I could change the way I looked at them. With the help of God, friends and family, I worked on changing my mindset. I worked on climbing out of the ruins of my journey. It wasn’t easy or quick, but any movement at all was something. With that being said, the depression I had was real. Even with a changed mindset, it didn’t just go away. Depression and pain go hand in hand. Fighting pain every day is depressing. Dealing with everything that goes along with pain is depressing.

It’s not that I wanted to give up, I just wanted to feel better. Move on with my life. I needed something to help me feel strong, and confident. I’d lost myself, but I didn’t want to lose myself to pain! I made the decision that the pain wasn’t going to win. I needed to find the strength to fight. Fight with every fiber of my being. As I began climbing out of the ruins, I started talking more to family and friends. I was honest. I told them of my thoughts, struggles, and how scared I really was. Simply sharing this was incredibly helpful and started giving me hope. HOPE! Hope for renewed strength and courage to fight the pain and everything that goes along with it. CRPS sucks. So do all other visible and invisible illnesses that others fight to overcome every day.

Words I began to live by: I am a fighter! I am more courageous than I think! I am not my pain! Pain does not have me! And finally, just so you know, I am strong. Strong, strong, strong, strong, strong! I clung onto these words and worked on strengthening my mind and body. Although my pain wasn’t gone, I was back to managing it better. Just as my journey had proven time and time again, climbing up out of the ruins can only make me stronger, right?

Here’s a video of my reminding myself I am strong! At least that’s what my socks say. LOL

My “journey” was starting to feel like Howard Jones’ song called No One is to Blame. I know I have what it takes to get through this, but each time I believe it may be coming to an end, I get stuck and can’t seem to make it there.  Jones sings, “You can see the summit, but you can’t reach it.”  Before surgery, I was hopeful it was going to be what I needed to be healed.  I soon found out I was nowhere near reaching that summit, the end of my pain journey. Although I was reaching with all my might, it just wasn’t happening.  Sometimes things just don’t go the way you plan and there’s really no one to blame. This process has proven that time and time again.

After surgery, I awoke from my medically induced slumber to a nurse calling my name and telling me where I was. Thankfully, it was in a recovery room where I had the surgery. The good news was the anesthetic had worked.  It kept me sleeping through the entire process.  (That’s the way it usually works, but you know how things work for me. HA) I had no recollection of the doubt that was going through my mind before the procedure.  It had went away. Although I wasn’t anywhere near coherent, they released me and wheeled me to the car.  Obviously, those who work in outpatient surgery aren’t allowed to be “patient” and wait on their patients to fully escape the effects of anesthesia.

Anesthetic really kicks my tail as I didn’t become fully coherent until 5:00 that evening.  I knew immediately something wasn’t right.  My ankle was fully wrapped, my pain level was high, and I noticed my crutches leaning against the wall. WHAT? If you remember, this was supposed to be a simple procedure with one small incision, and I was supposed to be able to walk out with a boot. Once again Jones’ song came to mind. It was becoming clear to me the surgery hadn’t gone as planned and the aspirations of being healed were quickly going down the drain.

Turns out the bad news about the surgery was the surgeon had to cut into more of my ankle than he expected. In fact, he cut into my entire tendon repair scar to remove part of my sural nerve and untangled another group of nerves.  This meant, I wouldn’t be walking or wearing a boot anytime soon. I was back to building a relationship with my crutches. MY CRUTCHES! The doubt and concern I had before were proving to be accurate. I wanted so badly for this to be the last piece of my puzzle, but it wasn’t proving to fit. Once I processed this new information, my emotions started churning. I was mad, angry, sad, frustrated, and beyond emotional.  How could this be happening? I began thinking, “WHY ME?” Why don’t things ever work out for me?  This would be the third time with my crutches, and I wasn’t anywhere near happy about that!  The pity party came on rather quickly, and it didn’t include anyone else, any cold beverages or balloons. It was just me, myself and I!

I spent the next week with my foot propped, being waited on, and taking pain pills. I was still hurting. The burning and aching pain were still there plus, I now had acute pain.  It was like I signed up to add another pain dimension to my situation.  The first week after surgery crept by slowly. I continued using the pain management techniques I learned at The Lemon Center.  I tried abundantly hard to stay positive amid my anger, frustration, and pity partying. How could it be possible that I was back in the same position as I was almost a year ago?

The first week didn’t prove to be any different than the first week after other surgeries. My pain was high and my incision was still bleeding. Of course it was! (Sarcasm)  Steve took me to see the surgeon to make sure everything was fine.  Are you sitting down?  The surgeon simply stated, “Your scar looks amazing.  You shouldn’t feel any pain at all because I removed a nerve.” COME ON!!  WAS HE SERIOUS??? There’s more than 1 nerve in a foot. Jones’ words of, “The doctor says you’re cured, but you still feel the pain” reverberated through my head. Why was it so hard for doctors to believe I was hurting?  The next thing he said was I needed to start taking valium! You heard it right. After 6 weeks of learning to relax and being more relaxed than I’ve ever been, he had the nerve to tell me to take a relaxation pill.  This was not an anxiety issue.  This was an acute and chronic pain issue.

Once again, I went home with doubt and confusion in my mind. After two years of living in pain, I knew what I had to do.  I had to refocus my mind. Although my anger and extreme sadness had taken over, I knew if I let it, it would consume me.  I reminded myself to take one minute at a time. To breath. To lean on God because I knew He would help get me through this.  However, I didn’t know it was going to get harder.  I thought I had been through the hardest part of my journey already.  Unfortunately, that didn’t prove to be true.