I Can’t Live With This Pain Anymore

“I can’t live with this pain anymore.”

The words gush out of me like an open, unending wound.

I shift uncomfortably in bed, stare up at the ceiling. The once scorching pads pressed up against my neck, back, side, are now all cooled dim. Growing pain shrieks in my inner being, intensifying each minute as I know I can lay no longer. 

Five a.m. and the house is quiet and dark – not a soul stirs about but me. I peel myself from the bed, wander to the bathroom.

Relief? But where?

A hot shower brings nothing but the drops of agony, worry, a warying notion that life cannot go on this way. Prayers and cries for this to stop. The pain ebbs and flows within, like the cascading pathways of water down my weary body.

Sharp pains dart all across my neck and back. Muscles tense uncontrollably, without warning or mercy. Sleep is elusive. My body, wracked with pain, shudders at the thought of enduring this mysterious chronic ailment for another fifty years until I wither away into oblivion. 

I had to be at the conclusion of this. I could not go on any longer this way. Would not. 

There was no way to escape this. No way to end it…

unless I ended life itself.

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I write this story…knowing there may be others of you out there living those days of deathly darkness, wanting a way out, dealing with despairing thoughts…

I know how desperate I was for answers in the midst of my unrelenting pain –

Why was I hurting?

How did I get here?

How do I get out?

Rest assured, there will be a happy ending to this…

And part of what led me to this resolution is finally finding another person’s story, someone who had suffered like me but moreso, and discovering that path that led to full healing.

So I write this for you.

If you are in a similar place to where I previously resided, this story is for you.

If you simply need a boost of inspiration for better health, true nutrition and taking care of yourself this year and in the years to come – this story is also for you.

The Story of My Pain

Welcome to my memoir, crazy chronicle of the chronic illness that changed me forever.

It all took place a time ago –

2014, and I had no idea what was waiting for me in the year ahead.

Back up four months prior to the memory above: Jan 2014. I had just had a baby – my 4th – he was a month old.  

But I did not have a heart swimming with baby bliss –

instead, I had a body that was drowning in a lot more. 

It felt nearly impossible to physically recovering from having him – aches and pains to an extreme nature. 

The timeline goes like this:

December 2013~

*4th baby born Dec 16 2013.  Extra antibiotics given.
*Continued Insomnia

One of the very first signs cluing me in that something’s wrong is the fact that I didn’t sleep for 48 hours straight after I gave birth to my baby.

This is my fourth and I always sleep “like a baby” after I finally have them…

but not this time.

Not after the birth, and not in the months to follow.

January 2014~

*Severe tension and pain all over back.
*Severe headaches and jaw pain
*Pain in wrists and arms
*Insomnia

The Hobbit is out in theaters that month and my husband and I agree to see it with him for his birthday.

The stipulation?

That he rub my back for half of it.

Which he does.

And it is a long movie.

• 

• 

February~

*Bilateral de Quervains tendinitis – severe, cannot use hands
*Bilateral carpal tunnel – severe, can’t use hands, pain moves all over from elbows down
*Back pain much less
*Insomnia

In February, I develop the oddest issue with my arms.

By Valentines’ Day, pain would mysteriously travel from my elbows to the tips of my fingers on both sides. So I wrap my hands, arms and wrists in bandages and braces and I stop using them.  

Yes –

I literally stop using my fingers, hands wrists and forearms 

and just let my arms dangle by my sides.  

Some of you can probably imagine having a 2 month old and not even being able to take care of yourself…

because you use your hands for just about everything. 

My other kids are 6, 4, and 2 at the time. They are the ones to cloth me, feed me, open doors for me, help me on the pump and bottle feed my little guy, carry their new brother to and fro, and on and on.

If I’m awake, I require care. 

I became just as needy as my own newborn baby.  

My condition carries on in this intensity for about 6 weeks.

March~

*Bilateral cortisone injections for wrist tendinits.  Doesn’t help.
*Surgery – ambulatory phlebectomy for varicose veins, bilateral.
*Develop trigger point in lower left QL.
*Urine retention
*Insomnia

Two surgeries await me that spring – one for varicose veins (those really hurt, too) – and the other for my left wrist – because you’ve gotta start somewhere.  

But the story doesn’t stop there.  

If I thought I knew what physical discomfort, pain, disability were, I was mistaken because the hardest part was yet to come.

April~

*Surgery – left de Quervains release.  
*Paleo diet 2 weeks.  No noticeable change in pain, bowels noticeably regular. Sugar from fruits, date sugar, not eliminated in this diet.
*Neck/back pain – pain constantly moving.  ROM decreased, unable to look down.  Feels like neck is so weak its hard to hold head up.  Bone pain at base of neck.
*Chiropractor X-rays neg
*Trigger points spread all over back – very severe pain
*Insomnia

I develop a spot in my lower back that spreads and I get to the point where I can no longer look down and my neck feels so weak it’s hard to hold my head up. Within a month I develop what are called trigger points all over my back, neck, sides.  

I cannot begin to describe the physical pain I endure from this. There truly are no words for it.  

But it’s almost constant.  

Intense.  

Unbearable.  

There are days my pain level is so high it feels like I need to go to the emergency room.  

I have many days like that.  And my pain problem leaves me completely consumed with finding pain relief.  But this is the worst part because…

there is little relief.  

At this point in my living nightmare –

my pain only responds to narcotics, and only for a short period. 

I have some left over from having babies. I’m aware of the little amount I have, that I can’t get more, and that I want it to remain effective, so I use it sparingly. 

In essence, I’m left with agonizing pain that I can usually do nothing about.  

I never know when it may get so high I can’t tolerate it. 

I have no control.  

With no control and no relief, extreme fear sets in.  

Anxiety. 

Depression. 

Despair.

May~

*Start treatment with myofascial trigger point therapist. After a thousand dollars in out of pocket treatment, she finally tells me the pain was all in my head and I just need to believe it isn’t there.
*Neck/back worsening – trigger points and extreme tension, pain level so high it feels like I need to go to the emergency room.  Pain not responsive to meds other than narcotics (left over from having babies).
*Anxiety/depression/compulsions.  Mind frequently in a state of fog/confusion.
*Weight at 94 lbs, unable to gain
*Fatigue
*Uncontrollable muscle tensing spreads to entire body.  Muscles feel like they’re gripping so much I would go days in extreme discomfort the entire day, no way to relieve it.  Feels agonizing, like I’m being tortured. 
*Sensory – extreme sensitivity to hot/cold, touch, noises
*Fibromyalgia-type pain all over
*Intermittent tingling and numbness (rt fingers, bottoms of feet)
*Rt de Quervains worse due to tensing
*Pain related to Anxiety, Fatigue.  When one is worse, all categories are affected.
*Insomnia

Along with the trigger points, I develop a host of other very odd symptoms, one being muscle tensing.  I basically have no control of my muscles and they feel like they’re gripping so much, I’m in extreme discomfort at a minimum for days on end.  

This is hard to explain…I do nothing all day but try to survive, try to escape the pain…I would walk around my house, in this fog, but fast – 

like I’m trying to run from it – 

because there is no rest, no peace…

I can’t comfortably stand, sit, lay down, nothing, I’m in such agony.  

I have severe insomnia, along with the suspicion I’m going crazy. And I am dealing with an excruciating level of pain during the day. 

It feels like God has given my whole being over to Satan to be tortured. 

There are several days I can number where I literally walk around in a fog of intolerable pain and confusion, feeling I’m in a pit of torture.  

Can you imagine what it’s like to be trapped in a body that is wracked with so much pain, it feels like you’re in a prison?  

Skip to the memory at the start of this post – this is exactly where I was. I would go to bed at night and beg Him to take me quietly while I slept, only to wake up in the dark of dawn, the start of yet another day.  

This was five months into my downhill slide – and I’m done.  

I feel at an end.  

I’m in misery and tell my husband so – my thoughts of ending of my life are becoming more serious and I don’t want to live anymore.

I’m starting to consider…wonder…and plan. 

These inclinations at a horrific ending are shared with our pastors, family, close friends, and they gather around in an effort to safeguard my life.

But the story doesn’t stop there.  

Over the next month, that pain and tensing in my neck and back?  

It spreads.

To my whole body – literally, from my scalp all the way to the bottoms of my feet. 

I have pain and involuntary twitching and tensing of my muscles all over.  It hurts my legs even to walk up and down the stairs. 

June~

*May symptoms continue
*Neck ROM and bone pain improves.  Not hard to hold up head anymore.
*Muscle twitching
*High level of fatigue, even when I do get sleep.  Literally hard to keep eyes open or walk sometimes.
*Severe loss of appetite. Takes an hour to finish a meal & then I’m completely drained of energy during & after eating, like it’s too much for my body to even chew and digest food.
*Difficulty focusing eyes
*Slight tremor in hand
*Overall feeling of sickness
*Lingering hives
*Numbness in rt fingers, bottoms of feet
*Pain in neck, upper back, left lower back, rt buttock, legs, rt hip, rt knee
*Overall feeling that things are not “right”
*Insomnia

June brings yet another turn.

I’ve already been struggling with sleep, but my fatigue steps up to a new level and it just feels like my body is shutting down.  

It becomes hard for me to find the energy to walk…

to eat…

it is hard to hold my eyes open.  

It would take me an hour to get a meal down as chewing and digesting forces my body to expend energy it just doesn’t have.  Overall, I feel “not right” and my thoughts are in the vein of, “what on earth is happening to me?!”  

My body is quitting.

July~

*Pain no longer responsive even to narcotics, despite little use
*Weight drops to 91.5 lbs

At this point in my ordeal, there is NO RELIEF. I find that this pain no longer responds to anything – NOTHING. No meds. I’d take a narcotic and it can’t touch it.  

In essence, I am left with agonizing pain I can do nothing about.

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July 4th that year – I have just one more half of Percocet left. The bits I’ve been taking are having less and less of an affect on my tormenting pain, to my horror and worry. 

I take that last half tablet that evening and watch the fireworks explode.

Bright combustions of color and light outside, excitement in the air over sparklers, a real life glitter, kids and their delight.

But inside?

Despair…as I sit in my chair, watching from the deck, my heart sinks as the pain refuses to lessen…

not one single glittering spark’s worth.

Utter despair sinks deep within, a loss of hope…

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This story is not over – read here for how I finally turned a corner and found complete healing!