An update regarding my personal health situation is long overdue. My last post from some time ago announced a temporary writing hiatus. It was very temporary as readers already know. It turned out the stress of not writing when there was so much going on in the world was greater than the stress of writing. My writing has been limited to blogging, however. I do have a continuing writing hiatus when it comes to doing any books or longer research articles.
Healthwise, I still live in considerable daily chronic pain. This is due to three major injuries in my life (any of which could have killed me) and a back injury and a concussion in the Fall of 2011. The pain gradually spread to muscle areas all over my body during the last year so it felt like fibromyalgia but was not specifically diagnosed as such. Trigger-point massage therapy prescribed by my MD has helped relax many muscle areas, but the lower back pain and sciatica is still the worst problem. For about a year it has been painful to bend over, flex forward or do anything that requires the lower back to move. As soon as I think I’m improving, I do a little of what I used to do easily and the pain reverts to a high level. I love to garden and do lawn work, but am very limited in what I can do until I am healed. I also have some concussion symptoms which need healing, but these are slowly lessening.
This week I was also diagnosed as having “moderate to severe arthritis” in the area of my left wrist and lower thumb area, making computer keyboard work painful. The pain in that area has been growing worse for the last half-year. At its worst, it was difficult even buttoning a shirt button so you can imagine how painful keyboard work is. I’m seeing a pain specialist in mid-January and I’ll know then if I need to alter my pain medications, lessen my writing time, etc. There is also constant neck/shoulder pain from a past serious accident in 1981, but the lower back pain is the biggest trouble area.
My tinnitus failed to respond to many advertised cures and treatments, but has lessened a little recently while taking Quietus, so I’ll continue with that regimen for a time. I’m sure there are readers who also have this affliction and the continual noise and racket in one’s ears make it hard to concentrate or enjoy life’s activities. The noise levels and the types of noises can vary widely among tinnitus sufferers. Before it hit me suddenly and very loudly in January, 2010, I had never even heard of this condition. For a time, there was even a “beeping” kind of sound in one ear that was very difficult to endure. Thankfully, that did go away. Now it is a continual buzzing or ringing sound.
Also, my PTSD is a chronic problem (I’ve lived with it for 42 years), and it produces anxiety attacks for which I take medication. I’d love to be free of this problem and learn what life is like without it! I also endure the many stresses of being divorced after 31 years. I’m sure many divorced readers can relate to all of these stresses too.
For those of you who are medically-minded, I’ll pass on the types and dosages of painkillers that I have been on. I’ve been on hydrocodone almost continually since 1996 (it was needed after a surgery put me into severe pain from whatever the surgeon did to me while I was anesthetized for a mere diagnostic procedure in which surgery was never discussed with me as a possible option prior to my being anesthetized). My standard dose of hydrocodone is now 10mg every six hours as needed, but I’ve taken hydrocodone for so many years that I barely feel even this dose. [As a comparison for non-medical readers, this dose is higher than what my ex-wife was given after her hip-replacement surgery.] My MD has also tried Nucynta at 50 mg. and I was for a time given up to 90 mg morphine a day in tablet form (one 15mg tablet every four hours as needed so that would be up to six tablets in a 24-hour day), but even that dose did not remove the pain. I can now take oxycodone at a low 5mg dose as needed, but I take this very sparingly as it is highly-addictive. I also use over-the-counter heat pads or icy-hot lower-back pads that do help some. Recently, I began acupuncture with a Taiwanese Oriental Doctor with decades of experience in that art, and I hope it will lessen my pain. I take nutrition supplements and eat a good diet. Three times in 2012 I’ve had to go to the ER for pain peaks, but there is little they can do. Once I was given 6mg of morphine in a shot, but that had barely any noticeable effect on my lower-back pain which was so bad at that time I could barely get on or off the exam table without assistance. I also take a prescribed muscle-relaxer.
Due to my pain levels, it is all I can do to keep blogging on my website. I would love to be able to write another book, do extensive research articles and travel and speak like I used to do to live audiences, but such activities are out-of-the-question until I receive some major healing and pain relief on several fronts. I feel like a ship in dry-dock being unable to write, travel and speak as I once did. I had to turn down a radio and a TV interview invitation this month due to my health situation. I am most reluctant to schedule such interviews as long as I cannot predict in advance how much pain I’ll be in or how much pain medication I’ll be on as I don’t want to be “zoned out” from meds or in too much pain to do a quality interview.
I do still very much request readers’ prayers for God our Father to have mercy on me and heal/restore me fully so I can do the above activities with the same health and confidence that I once enjoyed. I also am still unable to receive reader’s questions at my website as I must limit my time at the computer keyboard. Many thanks to those who have been praying for God to heal me and grant whatever I need to be restored to full-time, active service. I dearly look forward to the time when I can post a notice to readers with good news about my healing and restoration!
