Here I am on the other side of my latest  attempt”fix.” I can write about it now because I’m finally feeling human again. Feeling “better.” As better as I ever feel. Up until today…not so much.

I did not realize how much this would wreck my body. How unprepared my body was for a the medicine it was not used to being pumped straight into my spine for 2 days straight.  I thought it would be no big deal. I made big plans for the weekend. I would be fine. I was not fine. I did not make it to those plans.

It was a lonely 2 days. My wonderful husband has been with me for so many attempted fixes that for this one, he had to go to work, so I went alone. And nervous. And anxious. When they finally said those sweet sweet words, “here is something to make you feel more comfortable,” I welcomed it with open IV tubes.

After that, it began. The horrible decision making. Is this making me feel better? What’s my pain level? What’s my pain level now? Do I feel better than before? How about now? I hate having to figure that out!! Then came the itching. OMG, THE ITCHING. It started off slow, trying to fool me into thinking it wouldn’t be so bad, then little by little, more and more and then by the afternoon, I WANTED TO CLAW MY SKIN OFF. And then when your doctor says to you later, well, try to set the itching aside and tell me how your pain was. YOU set the itching aside! I was losing my mind! I have no idea what my pain was or wasn’t. I was going insane. That’s what I can tell you 🙂 So they turned the medicine down and the itching came down some, but still not great.

Then there’s the whole process of going to the bathroom, which of course you have to do a 17 trillion times because of all of the fluids they are pumping you full of. But you can’t just get up and go! You have to unplug yourself from the wall before you can go. And then you still just can’t go, you have to make sure you aren’t tangled in all of your wires and don’t yank anything important out of you! Fun times. Especially when you feel like you’re going to burst. Especially in the middle of the night when the bedside light doesn’t work! Wheeeee!! Fun times!!

By the second day, I became an expert at the unplug and pee routine. And was losing interest really fast in walking the halls and all of the movies I brought. But what else was there to do? I tried napping a bit, but they didn’t want me doing that much. Oh yeah, I could itch and scratch. I did that a lot still! They finally switched meds late in the day but unfortunately that didn’t help a whole lot. Then eventually in the evening, it all got taken out and I finally went home. But it was all in all a very unpleasant experience. I did not feel very well taken care of by either my doctor or the nursing staff. And the meds were not fun. And when I got home, the itching kicked up something fierce, and I was back to wanting to claw my skin off again. It was terrible!! And then the next day was way tougher than I thought it would be…

So, I mentioned before that I had made all of these plans for the weekend. Well, when I was supposed to be attending all of those plans, I instead feel asleep right where I landed on my bed after a shower I took after seeing my son’s soccer game, the only thing I did make it to that day. I then slept for 4 hours straight and only woke up because my husband woke me up to eat. I fell asleep a bunch more times the rest of the day and just felt wiped out and awful all day.

Sigh, just another day in the life of a chronic pain patient trying to find something that will fix the pain.