October 12th, 2011

Today is October 12^th, 2011. I felt the need to maybe explain how I feel on a daily basis, mainly to just put it on paper for my personal benefit. On a medical level, I am somewhat of head scratcher. First off, I have Bi-Polar Disorder, so I am depressed somewhat often along with a mania-style episode, where I can go sleepless for a substantial amount of time. What makes that a little worse is that there is some Psychosis that can come with the manic episodes, so there can be hallucinations, both visual and auditory. What that means is I can sometimes hear and see things when I am manic, or I could be depressed. And then there are the times in between these two where I am normal, which, thanks to modern medicine, is quite often.

I also suffer from Fibromyalgia, which is a type of chronic pain disorder. As I write this my wrists and forearms are in a good deal of pain. It is a burning pain, like the pain you get from carpet burn. My right leg hurts, too. The hip was replaced several years ago, and it has been sore ever since. The muscles in the leg are constantly aching, like after having a workout and you overdid it in a bad way. Both of my feet are terrible. I am not sure I can describe how bad they feel, but I will give it a shot anyway. My toes are typically stiff and hurt to bend them. The top of the foot, toward the outer side, feels like it has been cut with glass, like tiny little glass shards going into it, so it is like an acute burning sensation. That same sensation kind of flashes on and off all over my foot, but it is always a constant in that particular spot.

My lower back and neck are typically problem areas for me. My shoulders tend to burn and feel stiff on a normal day. They can get worse, but they maintain a lot of normal days, with tightness and bleeding pain on rare occasions. My neck feels like a knife has been jabbed into the base of my neck. I say knife, but really I would say that an ice pick would be more accurate. It is a fiery, piercing pain that tends to throb with its own heart. It sends out surges of pain, almost like a distress call for reinforcements.  My lower back is typically a tightness of dull pain, but can get pretty intense. The dull pain can be crippling at times, almost paralyzing as it can spread from the lower center of my back to my entire lower back, with noticeable tightness and pain at the spine. It is like my spine says no to movement.

When I try to go to bed, I have trouble sleeping, as then my elbows, particularly my left elbow, with awaken with its pain. My elbow just doesn’t like to be touching anything, it is like a ticked off nerve ending, not allowing me to have any comfort what-so-ever. Sleeping is also mission-impossible, as I have Sleep Apnea, a sleeping disorder where I stop breathing while I sleep. This makes things difficult, not the disorder, but the equipment used to treat the disorder. The CPAP machine, well the mask, is difficult to sleep with, as the mask has a hose connected to the machine and I tend to toss and turn while I sleep, so just imagine having an elephant nose while trying to sleep and you get a general idea of what I go through each night.

Speaking of treatment, the medication that I take each day has its own troubles. The combined side effects tend to make my body believe that it is 150 degrees constantly around me, and I’m not sure if that is Fahrenheit or Celsius. I sweat almost constantly for no apparent reason what-so-ever.

With this all said, I do have to say that I feel blessed. I still have two arms and two legs. I have ten fingers and ten toes. I can still walk and talk. I have two wonderful children, a beautiful wife, and a very supportive family around me. I may hurt all the time and I may not be able to sleep as well as I would like, but the point is that someone out there does have it worse than me. In fact, there are a lot of people who don’t have it as good as I do, that would love to be in my situation.

Philippians 4:11-13 says to be content with whatever situation you are in. The key is to be content with the situation that God has given me, to be grateful for what I do have and not constantly wondering who has the greenest grass around town. I have a lot to be grateful for in my current situation.