Today it is raining. It is one of those days when my body screams out.  I have pain in my neck, my back, my hands... My hands are my lifeblood.  They perform my praise to God.  I must play the piano or the organ.  I must sing.  It reminds me.  It is my form of prayer.  It reminds me.  I am a survivor.  It reminds me.  I have only recently realized I am a survivor.
     As I continue my health history I find that as I document the events from my life, it is having a profound  effect on me.  I am finding that my mind is constantly thinking of all the things that have shaped who I am today.  So I will continue now...
   
     As a continued to suffer from pain in my back and leg after that first major surgery, I found myself back in the hospital for pain control.  I wasn't used to this thing which had wrapped itself around my body.  I was given pain medications.  An MRI test revealed that the fusion had only worked in the front part of my vertebra.  The back part was moving up and down and causing the nerves to swell.  It was decided that I would need rods and screws.  Major surgery number 2.
     Again I went under the knife.  This time the muscles in my back were cut open to insert rods and screws.  Taking a piece of bone from my hip, again a fusion was attempted.  Another weeks turned into months with no relief.  More pain medication.  I was now taking an antidepressant as well.  I went for therapy.  I used heat, ice, traction, exercises to strengthen my back muscles, walking  backwards to strengthen my butt and leg.  Nothing seemed to help.  
     What I was thinking then I do not remember very well.  I was in a drug and pain fog.  I know my children must have suffered for this.  My family jokingly started calling me "Gimpy".  My kids grabbed the name and still occasionally use it.  While I laughed along with them, deep down I was beginning to feel like a failure.  It had been over a year and I seemed to be getting worse instead of better.
     Another hospital stay because of such severe pain I could barely walk.  This time it was found that the fusion had worked, but the screws had toggled loose.  It was decided that the rods and screws would need to come out.  So once again my back was cut into.  The muscles were cut again.
  
     What followed after this was a series of pain management, PT, more surgeries.  The nerves in my back had stretched and pulled out of shape.  The mental nerves were being numbed by morphine, antidepressants, muscle relaxers...  I was seen at Clevland Clinic where I was told I was addicted and needed to be admitted and "detox".  I was appalled.  I had been given pain medication because I had pain.  I was taking anti depressants because I was severely depressed.
    When I returned from the Clevland Clinic, I called my doctor and stopped all medications except the antidepressant.  I was convinced that although I may have been "addicted", it was not for lack of trying to rid myself of pain.  I found that with or without the pain medication, I continued to experience excurciating pain.  And somewhere during this time, I started not sleeping well.  I was now tired mentally and physically.
     It was during this period that I started having thoughts that maybe it would be better for my family if I wasn't there.  During the school year I missed events.  Concerts, art shows, athletic events.  During the summer I was unable to sign my children up for any of the many summer programs provided by our community.  I reasoned with the children that they would not be any worse off for not having to run around to this program or that.  In truth, I grieved.  I would take them to the library and pray that they would hurry to pick out books so I could return home and to my sofa.  Picnics were almost nonexsistant.   I couldn't seem to function.
     We had, through our Catholic School family, formed a group of 6 families that would camp together for a week at Allegheny State Park.  I used to love to hike and cook out, sleep in a log cabin, running after 18 month old Daniel.  As my back situation became worse, my participation in the group activity whittled down to sitting in a lawn chair by the fire and fixing the daily lunches.  Dan was never a fan of camping, usually spending the days at work and the evening by the fire.  So he was not upset when we had to finally decline our yearly trip.  The kids were more than a little upset.  This is I have to say, one of the few family memories that I treasure.  They seemed to love me just a little more.  It seemed that the freedom they had running, playing in the streams, getting dirty and loving it, was an escape for them.  It was a freedom to just be children.  Until the last year it was just that for me as well.  The last year, I distinctly remember that I was unhappy the entire week, so much so that I think we left early.  I was fixing lunch for 30 some people, helping prep for dinner, making sure to know where my kids were as well as watching other kids.  It was not fun anymore.  And I hurt.  Always I hurt.

     Still, looking back at this period in my life I think there was a rock bottom low.  I am not exactly sure when it happened.  But I would think if I could just escape.  Just get in the car and drive away... if I could escape my family to relieve them of the burden of caring for me... if I could just go away.... be gone....  I didn't realize it until I was forced into a consultation with a Pain Psychologist before I could receive a new implanted device called a neuro-stimulator.

     I am amazed that as I sit here in pain today it is so much different then those hopeless years.  Had I not been faced with my own mortality, I am not sure how I would have survived.  This is another long entry in my new experience as a blogger.  I am not sure anyone will read it, but I know that it having an effect on me.  Revisiting sad and hopeless days and feelings is so odd.  I look back with a sense of knowing that perhaps all these things have happened for me and not to me.  Having cancer changes your perspective on things.  I don't think I realized this.  And I think God is using me for good in some way or another.  I have a unique life story as all of us do.  I haven't said very much about my husband.  While we are in a very good place now, during those long painful years we weren't so much.  I think maybe I will explore that a bit more.  Maybe tomorrow.
with the peace of God
Barb