And so it goes...with a wince...

I live with chronic pain.

I have arthritis in my hands, upper and lower back, knees, and hips - all of which makes some days just plain sucky. Today is one of those days. Awhile back my doc tried to get me to take a prescription pain killer but I refused. The side effects to those things are killer. Literally. No, I try to get through the day with nothing more than a couple of Alleve or maybe an Ibruprofen. It doesn't always work. Today, it's not working.

When you're in pain people around you don't really understand how it affects you. I'm sitting here typing this on a break from work and all morning I've been trying to be pleasant and cooperative with my co-workers. But my instincts are telling me to crawl into a dark place and rest right now. I can't. The juxtaposition of "being pleasant" and "being strong" is also giving me a massive headache because it's hard to do. It's stressful. And talking about it to others doesn't seem to help because unless they have felt this way they cannot and do not understand.

I hate this pain. It's slowly sucking away at me inside. I want to do so much and it limits me every single day. I have a new puppy that I would love to take for a walk, just around the block, but I cannot. My knees and lower back make getting to the corner a chore and getting back is excruciating. As it is, I am almost to the point, where at 18 pounds I can barely lift him anymore. I still try but it hurts and then continues to hurt long into the night.

Chronic pain makes sleeping a hit or miss event as well. I will often wake up, having slept too long (how long is too long?) in one position and my body is aching but moving into a new position is so painful that it wakes me fully so falling back to sleep becomes a challenge. I am on-call sometimes up to three nights per week so I can't take anything to help me sleep or I'll miss the calls. So I am tired. Deeply, deeply tired. And being overtired means more pain. It is a never ending and vicious cycle.

But there is nothing else to do but to go on so I live with it. Day in, day out, in pain. I wish it was different. I do things to alleviate it - try to keep warm, keep moving, massage, whatever I can. I'm sure I'm not the only one and I'm sure I won't be the last. All I know is living in pain sucks...big time.