I am overwhelmed. I truly expected a blast of ** in regards my meds, as I have become used to being looked down on for being on them. (*****/weakling/etc) Also, I am amazed that anyone actually cares. My apologies for being so long to get back on here, but my little man takes up a great deal of my time. My lady is not able to deal with a crying baby, and well, I have the bulk of the childcare. You may draw your own conclusions, suffice to say, it's damned hard being me. Oh, and playing on the puter makes me hurt, sitting still too long, with my leg bent as well, not good. Ouch. (taking another percocet) Ok, all better soon. As far as the 666, it's in my social security number, and I have used it since I first got on the net. I found it amusing that the number of the beast was there, ya know? For the record, I am a real Christian, not one of those plastic ones. I read The Book, not as much as I should, but I have faith, thank The Lord, or I'd have been dead long ago. My life has been hard, even prior to this crappy RSD. (mostly my fault though) I've looked down the barrel of a gun many times, wondering...but I decided that it wasn't honorable, nor something Jesus would approve of, ya know? I'm not scared to **** off anyone on this planet, but that fellow we felt should be nailed to a tree, well, different story there. I am totally against being operated on, in any fashion, and I have a complete phobia against needles. I'd have to be screaming in agony 24/7 before I'd take a needle at all, no joke. If God wanted us to be injected, we'd all have easy access ports. I am not a crying type of person, I know for a fact I've only cried twice in the past three years, when I found out how horrid this thing was, and when my son was born. All that being said, I nearly did when I read about some of your stories, and felt the compassion there. As far as the meds I'm on, I found out that percs and soma worked for pain when I sprained my back in '93, so when I thought I had a sprained knee, I asked my doc for them. He obliged. The serax was prescribed by a shrink when I 'acquired' panic attacks. It really mixed well though, and I found the three together really hammered the pain, for a while. Only after I was diagnosed did I find that the three I had stumbled upon were the best combo. Lucky, I guess. After I was told what I had, I found it somewhat depressing, hence the wellbutrin. Twice it went into remission prior to the most current attack, year and a half ago or so, and then the pain was pretty tame, comparatively. This time it hit hard, felt like a blowtorch on the inside of my knee, water running down my leg feel, nails being pounded into it, little charley horses as well whenever I tried to walk at a normal pace. I was told I was a junkie by an ER doc.Bastard. Had evil thoughts for him. Took me 45 minutes to walk out to the car, three steps, then stop, and grit my teeth, trying not to puke, seeing colors from the pain, un-freaking-real. Never felt pain like that before. Anyways, I just looked at the clock, I must go, gotta get up at eleven and get little man some diapers, food, and wipeys, then drop him off at Grandma's and off to work. Oh, does anyone on Earth have any idea exactly what the hell causes this horror? Virus? Genetics? Chemicals? A theory even? Not knowing what caused it is eating me up. Well, gotta go.

Later,
Smoke

Oh, and in the real world, yes, most people actually call me Smoke, nickname from work, and it stuck.