Today is October 12th, 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.
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