2 1/2 Weeks

I expect good days, bad days and good weeks and bad weeks, but two and a half weeks of non-stop gripping pain is intolerable.  The right side of my neck is twice as thick as my left.  I can feel the tightened muscles pulling on my pectorals, up under my jawline, and the pain wrapping around my head and over the top of my shoulder.  Each time I move my chin downward even a fraction of an inch, it feels as though a knife is being plunged into my back by my shoulder blade.  The nerves inside my arm alternate between a constant deep ache and electrical surges. 

Last Tuesday morning, the pain had lessened and I was so excited, you'd think I'd won the lottery.  That afternoon, after leaving a meeting downtown, I was driving home and out of nowhere came the knife blade in the shoulder blades.  All I could think was "where the hell did that come from?"

By Wednesday - exactly two weeks from the onset of this extreme episode - I called my orthopaedic surgeon's office and left a message on his nurse's voicemail:

"I need help.  I am in so much pain I can't stand it and this has been going on for two weeks.  I've tried everything I can think of - anti-inflammatories, vicodin, ice, heat, stretching...I've even gone to a massage therapist.  I don't know what else to do.  Help."

As I said those words, tears rolled down my face.  "Will you look at this?"  I said to a co-worker.  "Is this not the stupidest thing you've ever seen?  It's not that the pain is bad enough to cry about; it's that is won't stop."  She nodded understandingly because she has a brother who suffers from chronic pain.  "I know," she said. "It's the frustration."  And it is.

The non- stop pain just wears you down.  It makes you want to do whatever it takes to make it stop.  You still muddle through whatever you have to do - not very effectively, but adequately - until you can retreat.  Then it's anything and everything you can do to make it stop, including taking enough pain killers to put yourself into a state of semi-consciousness.  At least you'll get some peace for a little while.

Now, that compounds another issue: what about the things I need to do and want to do?  What about the chores and the bills and - heaven forbid - something fun?  Right now, I will force myself to deal with bills but beyond that...I don't care.