Been MIA, sorry...

Hey everyone. I have been missing for a few weeks because I was in the hospital yet again. I will have to have another surgery but I am going to do that one after the new year. I am going to get to my teeth taken care of this year and then deal with surgeries next year once the holidays are over. I just think that the kids are so used to me being in the hospital or at the doctors office or things like this. I wish that it wasn't so but I have some wonderful news about how things went this time aaround.

I started out worried about how things were going to go. I have Fibromyalgia, Interstitial Cystitis, Endometriosis, Polycystic Ovaries, gallbladder issues, IBS, PTSD, depression, migraines, post herpetic neuralgia (had shingles and this is the pains you get after the sores go away), sciatica and I could go on and on. Each of these things cause a little bit of pain here and there but combined it seems to be a pretty difficult combination to deal with. My husband struggles with the fact that these things seem to be in my head and that I can deal with them without medications. I struggled so much with that because I tried 3 times to get off of the medications only to end up in the hospital or back on the medication. Chris felt that it was the doctor or that it was addiction. Living with Chronic pain is not an easy thing for anyone to deal with but the people we love have to deal with the fact that they are helpless to do anything for our pain. They can't take it away and that has to be a terribly frustrating thing for them to live with.

Well, I was once again struggling with my pain. I didn't want to admit that I needed to increase my medication because I felt if I did it would upset Chris and make him angry with me and only make him more sure that I was an addict and not useing the medications to feel better and not to get high. It is a hard thing to know what is going on especially when someone is trying to get to a dose level that they can live with. The loved ones only see us poping pills and not the other things. They also see the side effects and they worry about how it is changing us.

I got to the point that I felt that I was more of a problem to the family and that they would be better off without me being around at all. I began to think about what to do and I realized that I needed to get help and now. I couldn't wait any longer for the psychiatrist to get things figured out slowly over months. I went to the hospital and talked to them about it and they admitted me immediately. I was scared. I was scared about how I was feeling but even more about how I would be treated. People with chronic pain often run into trouble when it comes to hospital pain management because they naturally doubt people when they come in and assume that they are drug seeking from the start until they see signs of that not being true. From the start however they hooked me up with a doctor who has chronic pain himself and that made a huge difference for me. He met me with empathy and sympathy for what I was going through and my fears were addressed right away. I then began to tell him my history and he couldn't believe that I was doing as well as I was considering what I have been through. He said I should have come in a year ago when things started to get bad for me. I told him how Chris felt about it all and he totally understood. He said that the doctors there would talk to him before I oould go home to make sure that I was on the same page with him from the start. He also said to expect to stay a long time because he wanted to get my pain taken care of along with the depression. He was angry that my psych doctor hadn't put me on antidepressants sooner because of my history. I got myself settled and prepared for a long stay. I told Chris the plan and he made arrangements to have help with the kids for a while. He was glad I was there because they were finally dealing with things from my past that should have been dealt with long ago. He too was upset that it hadn't been addressed yet but understood what the goal of my other doctor was. He just wanted me home and better.

So, I started treatment which turned out to be a huge blessing. They added a new medication, the patch for pain so that I am not sucking down a whole lot more pills then I already was and this would reduce my side effects. They started me on some antidpressants and we began from there. It was hard for me to open up to them and talk about some of the problems that I had been having. I am always so scared that they will begin to think I am an addict like Chris and his family did. They told me that there is about 90 percent of the people who come in who are there for drug seeking but that I showed no signs of this so they were not worried unless I began to show signs of it. I began to feel a lot better and the pain began to get better enough that I could move again.

The meeting that they held with Chris and I went well. They had me explain to Chris what the pain felt like, where and what caused it. He bagan to cry when we did this. It is a lot to take in and it seems like a lot. For me it is just my life and I am used to it all. It hurts but I am used to having it every day. Next they talked to us about learning to live with chronic pain and that they hoped I could find ways to get off of some of these meds but told both of us not to expect for me to ever get off of them. This was hard for me to take because I wanted to believe that I could get off of them once I learned how to deal with it all. They told me that most people in my situation have a hard time living with it all at first but that I was doing amazingly well considering what little help I have had with dealing with it all. They talked to Chris about the fact that I have been trying to get off of the medications a few times and that they wanted me to stop trying to prove to myself and him that I needed the medications. They said we need to accept it and live with it and that they would help us do that. They talked to Chris about my doses and told him that most people with these conditions usually are on low to medium doses of medications. They said however that having all of them together made it so that I had to be on a higher dose of medications and this was why I was on a higher dose then he thought I should be. They told him that they are not worried about addiction at all because I show no signs of it for one but also that people in chronic pain situations have a low risk of addiction. We made a plan for how to deal with it and what I was going to do about it when I needed to take a higher dose. We thought that it was a reasonable request for us to work together and it would help Chris to know what is going on with me. They told Chris that our friends who have over dosed and died were having a few problems. They were either not being treated correctly in that they didn't have enough control or were over medicated and couldn't function properly and made medication mistakes. Those who were not getting enough treatment and they sought out meds from different sources and most times without doctor supervision and took too much. This helped Chris to feel better about that with me and all of the discussion helped us both in a lot of ways. We both knew what was going on and we made plans on how to deal with it when I needed help again. This way I wasn't not telling Chris when I was having a hard time and he knew what I could do and when.

That taken care of a lot of stress was off of me to do things Chris's way and I am not so scared to tell the doctor that I need a higher dose. I didn't go higher before because I was afraid that Chris would think that I was trying to get high and wanted to be on more meds. My doctors helped me so much in this department. It helped so well that on Monday I was sick and threw up all morning. Chris knew I wasn't feeling well and told me not to worry about the house work. Before he would come home and be upset that nothing was done. This is a huge change from the way things were before and because I wasn't stressing I was able to get the rest I needed and was able to get back on track on Tuesday. This felt so good to me that I was under much less stress and I think that Chris felt good not making me so upset.

I was there for a long time but it proved to be worth it. I made a few really good friends there who are in similar situations as me and seeing someone else like themselves helped us all to heal faster. We had fun, we joked about everything and laughing made us all feel so much better. We got pretty close because we had time to talk about everything. There isn't much to do in the hospital when we are not seeing the doctors. LOL. The boys were so happy to see me home and I felt good being able to come home and not be confined to the couch. It hurt me so much that I couldn't move from the couch and do anything much less take care of the kids or the house. It hurt to see the kids watch me go through all of that and not be able to help me in anyway. They tried their best to do what they could but they are young boys, they couldn't do much. They were happy that they got to visit me and I didn't have to have an IV in this time. That always stressed the boys out to see that sticking in my hand or arm. Everytime I go they didn't want to visit. They still didn't want to visit much but it was more fun this time around because I could play with them and was able to get out of bed and stuff.

My doctor was great and worked so well with me. It made my able to be myself again and that alone makes me so happy. I am feeling so much less depressed and now my pain is under control enough that I am not on the couch and have been able to do quite a bit around the house again. I am not trading that for a lower dose of medications or taking them less often because I am worried about how Chris will feel about it. They helped save our marriage because I truly felt that Chris was at the end of his rope and I really felt that they were better off with me not around making thier lives difficult. I have my life back pretty much and this to me is great. I am not in so much pain that it is all I talk about and hopefully I can make some new friends. I really learned who my true friends were in this because the ones who cared stuck around. Everyone else is ready to write me off as a complainer about everything or someone who has so much drama in their life that it is overwhelming.

To all who I haven't been talking to, I am sorry but this is my life and how it goes. I often forget to write or call because my life was so hard for me to deal with let alone remember how to keep in touch with my friends and loved ones. I am already doing much better with this and it makes me so happy. Chris is happy to have talkative me back and I can take his jokes without getting mad that he is being mean. When you are depressed things are not what they seem and it is hard to figure out other people let alone what you want to deal with. It is hard to move and do the things you need to. It is a hard thing for people to understand. Our lives seem like we should be able to jump back and deal with it but when you are depressed nothing is easy. I wish that I could make people understand it.

I am back and in a better way. I love you all who have stood by me.
Thanks, Jennie