[momzpeachy]

Hi everyone.

I am at home and in pain as usual. I go for my second nerve block tomorrow. Oh yipeee! The first one didn't do a darn thing. It's so darn cold outside that it's making me feel worse. Now it's supposed to snow tomorrow. I also have an appt in the morning with an attorney. I am just so totally fed up with everything. At the moment..I hate life. This is all so unfair and I sympathize with anyone and everyone else who's going through this. I'm just mad at the world! No one seems to understand how I feel...nobody ..not even my husband. I get the cold shoulder and ignored when I talk about it. IT MAKES ME SO MAD! I can't do anything..everytime I try..it hurts...I can barely type a message on here. All I want to do is cry at the moment because I feel like my life is falling a part. I have to have the worst luck. We just bought a house a few months ago and now I'm not working. I feel like I'm being blamed. I just don't get it. I can't take any medications other than ibuprofen..I'm allergic to them all so pain is it..that's whatI have to deal with. Also, bills..oh my this is expensive. So far my bills are almost 10k for all this...all the tests and appt's. Sheesh. No doubt my company is going to fight this because they aren't going to want to pay.
I'm sorry I just needed to vent I guess. I'm not happy and I don't know how to get happy again. I feel like everything is such a MESS!

Hope everyone else is feeling better...if you're in the NE...stay warm!

T

[Jomar]

I can't recall how you got your TOS?? Or how long you have been injured with it?
From repetitive type or static work/bad postures and if no other factors or dx's to complicate things ?

[watsonsh]

Oh Momz,

I am so sorry that you area going through this. It sucks. Yep it does. Vent all you want. I'll say my infamous thing that someone told me was to give yourself persmission to feel bad as long as you like otherwise you are just fighting your own guilt about feeling bad.

I have not posted much because the last week I have been feeling sorry for myself and hurting. But I wanted to write a couple of things to you.

First I remember that you mentioned that breathing problem. I have had that several times especially when I have had injections. What can happen is that some of the injection ( the anathesia) can touch the phrenic nerve and make it feel like you cannot breath. But you can. But that feeling makes me more anxious and then I tend to chest breathe even though my diaphragm is working fine. It wears off.

Second, when I first read your post I wondered if they are giving you a nreve block or trigger point injections. I reacted badly to trigger point injections. sick, naseous, headache. Ask the doc to switch up the meds. Maybe instead of marcaine to use lidocaine, or kenalog vs celestone. Keep trying though. They say it takes several rounds of shots to make it better.

All of this can be so overwhelming. Break everything into littel pieces and take it one thing at a time and soon it will add up to many tings and you will be like I handled alot of it. If I think of it as one big mess then I break down and wonder how can I cope.

I too dont do well on the meds. react badly to almost all of them. So I feel your pain.

And yeah the bills. I was doing my taxes and my med bills added up to a new car last year. . Luxury car, fully loaded. Could not believe it. Oh well. But every penney would be well worth it for any kind of relief

Maybe your hubby isn't ignorning you but just does not know what to say. and anything he says, he says wrong. Maybe he is afraid. My hubby was like that in the beginning. And poor guy he did not have anyone to vent to. Felt like he had to be strong. His life is falling apart too. Maybe he needs someone to listen to him too. And (sorry guys) but sometimes guys are not the same is terms of listening. They are problem solving listeners and sometimes all we are looking for is empathy. So tell him that you just want him to listen. And sit down and talk to him and say you can only imagine how he feels and you understand what this is doing to his life and your life together. Tell him he can share with you and you are a team and in this together. One thing at a time.

God am I sounding preachy? Sorry if I am. Not meant to be. I am really sympathetic.

Ah Happiness. Where is it, when will it come back. When this all first hit me, I was crazy, mad at the world, searching for the cause and most of all afraid.

I had to learn to separate my fear from the pain. Fear will only intensify pain and exaggerate it. Fear makes everything worse. Try to separarte them. I did hypnosis. It helped and I had to learn that the cause and the whys and the fear will not make it better. I needed to search for other things. Controlling the fear will help some calm come back and maybe a little happiness.

ok enough...tell me to shut up.

One thing at a time. First

[johannakat]

Shelley- I sure needed to read that today, thanks : )


Shelley gave me that husband advice a while ago and it has been very useful for me. It was also really useful to make sure my husband got to come to some of my procedures and talk to the doctor first hand. It sounds crazy when I come home and say "well Dr Jordan told me no more than two hours on the computer in a day FOREVER more...even when I feel better" but when Dr. Jordan said the same thing to me, my husband was on board and trying to help me problem solve...no arguments about dragon, he offered to take over the bills (which are ALL on the computer), and has been a lot more helpful with getting our little kids, who I can't reall lift very well anymore, to and from school.

Little pieces.

[dawn3063]

I remember the day they took me off work completely. Like you we had just bought our home and my husband and I weren’t even married yet. Talk about stress. It was a very difficult time.
Steve (my husband) told me that I had needed to see an attorney. I was sick to my stomach. How could I go to an attorney? This company would do right by me. I was concerned that the company that I had worked so hard for was going to be furious with me. I had worked there for 11 years at the time and now I was in the process of suing them or I should say there insurance company for my injury. Blah.. LOL… Boy did I learn later... I was just another warm body showing up to do my job. They could have cared less about me. Prior to seeing an attorney, I had been told I had minor problems. Mainly what they were telling me was to rub some dirt on it and walk it off so to speak.
I had then found an attorney but the process took a little time. Things were tight and Steve picked up the slack. My attorney found a Dr for me to see and things started to happen. My Dr found that I had herniated disks in my cervical spine and I had needed fusions. That had taken place and the insurance company started to pay me my wages.
Things began to go better. But I had to say goodbye to my job as I could no longer perform required duties. Now what do I do... I was once again depressed and sickened and I cried day and night. I lost the job I loved so much and worked so hard to get. I then was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, DDD, neuropathy, carpal tunnel, chronic neck pain… etc... I won't even get into how I found out I had TOS, thats another long story.
Steve was wonderful but I knew this was very hard on him. To this day he still has a hard time talking to me about a lot of my medical problems. The day I was diagnosed with TOS he had no clue as to what it was or what it entailed... I don’t think he really understood until we had a TOS meeting with some of the TOS'ers from the So Cal area. It really helped him to understand what I had been going thru and dealing with. But it is very frustrating because we look great on the outside and we feel so torn up on the inside. For example when people hear that someone has cancer they treat them differently because they know of the disease. But with TOS they have no clue and don’t believe the pain and weakness we experience.
My Cervical spine was W/C. But my TOS is not and like Shelly I have spent so much money on medical bills I probley have put a down payment on a new home or purchased 2 new luxury cars. I joke with Shelley and tell her I should be the poster child for our surgeon as we share the same surgeon.
I have been thru the 5 stages of Grief and I think at times I go thru them over and over again.
This is such a tough thing to go thru. Personally, financially, physically, emotionally you name it, it’s hard...
Hang in there. Times will be rough but your health is important and you can see yourself thru this. Give your husband a little time; maybe he just doesn’t know what to think or how to deal with this. As Shelley said maybe you can sit down and have a heart to heart. It may be very hard for him to see you in such pain. My husband has a very hard time seeing me when I am in a lot of pain or very depressed. It affects him emotionally too. Our husbands aren’t always the tough guys they try to portray.
Good Luck to you... You’re in my thoughts... I see a lot of what you’re going thru now and it brings back a lot of memories for me.
I could go on and on but I think I need to start wrapping this up...
Many Big Gentle Hugs
Dawn

[Junie]

I feel your pain!!!! But for the pain meds I can and do take (not that they help much) I could have written this! You are not alone!!!!
xoxoxoxo

[Jomar]

Work comp info & tips
this link is for Oregon - but much of the IME info and other basic info with how best to deal with the W/C system is good for many.

http://www.injuredworker.org/
http://www.injuredworker.org/ime.htm

At some point you'll probably have to go to an IME/QME - so it's good to know this before then.

[dabbo]

or really, just my 1 cent. anyways. I don't think that there is anything wrong with feeling mad or angry at the world. It is virtually impossible for others to KNOW what it is like to live with pain each and every day. Try as they might, it is just too difficult to put into words. The best comparison I can think of is that since I am a guy, there is no way I can truly KNOW what it is like to give birth; I feel that understand what it is like, but I realize that I won't truly know, since I can't go thru it. I've found that my wife doesn't always ask me how I'm feeling because a). she picks up on it, and b) i'll sometimes get frustrated with her asking - why, i don't know. It may be because I don't want to burden her or I don't think this is what she signed up for when we got married 1.5 yrs ago. Turns out, she wants to be more involved. Now, if our 6mo old allows it, we go to the doctor together. That works out well for all, since the doc does a MUCH better job of explaining everything, and my wife gives the doctor insight into things about me that I don't notice (insert typical guy joke here _______ ) anyways - i hope that something in here helps. sorry to ramble- i've been typing/thinking on and off for an hour now.

[Stardust]

So sorry to hear that you're having such a rough time right now....Regarding your husband, I just want to reiterate what some of the others have said: it might help if you were to take him with you to some of your doctors appointments/procedures. I've been fortunate in that my husband has always believed me, and has been "understanding" about my condition. But I don't think he truly "understood" until he went with me to a few of my doctors appointments/procedures and met a few of the other TOS'ers. He just seems to "get it" in a different way now. (Of course, I guess this advice only applies if you have a doctor who truly understands TOS and its ramifications, and can explain it well.)

Best of luck with your nerve block today....hopefully your husband is going with you.

Stardust