Well, having gone to the three required evaluations, I just got a letter from the pain management doctor announcing (big surprise here) that their team of experts has determined that I would benefit from their program. When I went to their evaluations, I asked a lot of questions, and nobody answered any of them to my satisfaction. None. The closest to a cogent response I got was “we have lots of experience with people in pain.”

If they want to suck up all of my insurance-paid sessions plus my co-payments, they should explain to me exactly how they propose to make me better. If they really know what they’re doing, it shouldn’t be hard to explain.

I think what’s gonna happen is that I will spend two half-days for six weeks in a group, learning in OT how to perform tasks without straining my back, wrist, shoulder, etc. In PT I will learn how to strengthen the aforementioned body parts. And in the group counseling, there will not be one other person with PN, but it will be good for me because all the back, wrist, shoulder, etc. pain is the same as mine.

In short, I’ll do lots of things that don’t apply to my problem. There is nothing that PN prevents me from doing. It just hurts like hell but I do the laundry, shopping, vacuuming, yard work, and so on because I have to. I don’t need to learn another way to do those things because there is no way to do them without my feet hurting. I don’t need to learn how to suck it up because I’m already doing it. If they can’t reduce my pain, they’re wasting my time.

So what am I going to do? Whatever they say, in the faint hope that just maybe this isn’t all just BS like I think it is, and maybe this doctor can help me. If my predictions are wrong, I promise I will tell you I was wrong. But I don’t think I am.

If you hung in with me this far, thanks. I’ll try to be in a better mood next time.