If you'll take a look at the photo's I almost didn't decide to share, you'll see that I understand how horrible it is living with peripheral vascular disease because it sounds like we both found the same boat that was mounted on the Titanic.

I'm not really surprised that RSD became one more issue when you've got the incessant circulation problems that usually include infections and even blood clots to name a few. I know and so does everyone else here that you're not some nut who's looking for your next round of drugs and that you're not suffering from a love of spending days at a time in doctor's offices reading dog-eared magazines showing the latest hippie movement as news breaking on the front cover. You're just trying to find solutions.

Vascular diseases are one those really hard nuts to crack illnesses because it's not always just about treatment, but how in the world we live with it that drives us half insane at times. You've spent days, weeks and months I'm betting with physical therapy. Medications seem to only help a bit, but nothing so far has really eradicated these invasive diseases from taking over your life. So now what?

First, stop beating yourself up! It's not your fault so stop shopping for more. It is something that you might just have to learn to live with no matter what stage your at or if worse it progresses, but trust me - you can live with it. One way is by not competing with yesterday and every time you start comparing what you use to call normal compared to what you're living with now, you're only headed down a very dark emotional hallway that leads nowhere. Instead learn to live with what you still have plain and simple, even though there's nothing simple about it whatsoever.

Right now I'm betting that as much as you hate carrying around a purse full of medications, you're going to need to accept that you probably always will. You need better pain management. This first requires you release any prejudices you have against the hard stuff and instead look at harder hitting prescriptions such as narcotics in a bit different light. It wasn't till I started my regimen of OxyContin and OxyIR (plus internal morphine pump) that I was able to find a new normal in life. Before my accident, I wouldn't take an aspirin over a headache because of such adversity against anything in pill form. Once you get your pain under better control you'll then find the means and ways to find solutions you would have never considered in a million years before now.

Secondly, please try and do anything you need to so you don't accidentally strike out against those who love you. While we all have the tendency to hurt those we're the most close too, it only causes more grief in the end. When you're finding yourself bouncing off the walls emotionally, do it alone or get in touch with the gang here, but avoid it in your real world as much as humanly possible. Bridges are easy to burn down but takes years to rebuild so if the doctor advises you to take some form of chill pill - do it. You're at an intersection in life where you've got to trust your doctors and then accept that these most intimate of relationships also take time to forge. Only through time will you hopefully and slowly find yourself in better shape than you are today.

Not is all is lost, it's just different and I'm positive that you will learn how to live this different life that's ahead. I'm here if you need to talk, Bob.