Pain

A few weeks ago I suffered a serious spinal injury at home, gravity is not my friend. I had opinions from 3 top neurosurgeons, they all came up with the same prognosis, the damage is in the cervical vertebra, while paralysis in not likely, the damage will take months to heal, with or without surgery.

I was discharged to go home, I will get PT and OT which may or may not help, but what do I have to lose, I'll take it. I have my shoulders and upper back in a stiff cervical collar to heal, but I must be as still as possible and I must sleep facing up, very difficult.

My PCP has worked with PT and the neurosurgeon to give me the correct medications, however one of my fears is to come out of this with an addiction, luckily my PCP is conservative as I am, but this leaves me with the big problem, pain. For instance, it is now about 7:30 am and I have 2 hours to go before I allow myself another dose and I'm about a 7 on the pain scale and climbing.

My wife thinks I should just take the allowable doses and deal with the addictions later, but addictions don't run in my family, they gallop through it. Medical THC helps a little, but instead of euphoria, it depresses the hell out of me and it increases the chance of a fall.

Right now I can go to the bathroom by myself, my wife helps with a shower, but I can't ride in a vehicle, go out to eat or cook, I'm under virtual house arrest for at least 3 more months. I'm not much of a TV watcher, so I read on my Kindle until I get bored. My wife has been an absolute angel, she is normally a gym rat, but she doesn't want to leave me, even with relatives, to go work out. I've had a lot of visitors, please no more, and calls from friends.

My outlook is positive, but the pain is debilitating, meditation helps and as a Catholic we were taught to dedicate our pain to God, he may be getting sick of me.

I'm writing this because even with the narcotics, I'm hurting and blowing off a little. I may not be able to drive again, that bothers me a lot. The good side is that I was not paralyzed or killed and that it happened to me not a grandchild.