When Hope Is All You Have: April 2019

Dr. Smith said it best: "Oh, the pain!" (Or "Oh, the pain...the pain!!") Well, I could probably put it another way, but I won't for now for fear of offending myself.

So anyone who knows me on Twitter knows that the previous two days I've dealt with a lot of pain. More than usual. Since my diagnosis the pain has slowly been increasing. Some of it is sciatica, but a lot of it isn't. Sometimes the pain is around the L5 spinal segment, and that's the one that practically keeps me from walking.

I initially rejected the idea of pain killers. I felt that admitting I needed pain killers was like I had one foot in the grave. But then I started feeling the pain in of sciatica. Not only did it hurt, but it gave me this claustrophobic feeling like belts were strapped around my legs and I couldn't get out. This led to a panic attack, which just made the thing a whole lot worse.

So at that time I asked my oncologist, (who also specializes in palliative care and hospice care) if there was something stronger than aspirin that I could take. Pain is one thing she will not let patients endure unnecessarily. Since my pain was acute, I was given a prescription for Oxycodone. (Note: the second opioid crisis is lack of pain medication for those who really need it, like people with metastatic cancer.)

I found this worked really well. I'm generally never painless, but the Oxy will take it down to where it's bearable. Fortunately, I can usually tell when weird claustrophobic sciatica will happen, so if I can take pain meds early, I don't get panic attack.

Yesterday and the day before I could barely walk when I got up in the morning. This morning at 6:00 am, I got up and took my pain medication as I could feel it coming on. Then I went back to bed, slept a couple of hours, and woke up at 8:00 am with barely any pain at all. So seems that if I can stay ahead of the pain, it'll be a whole lot better for me later on.

Ok, I never get to talk about the Lost in Space TV show. Ever. Enjoy...