Monday, September 8, 2014

An Appeal to Blogger ShadyNorma


This morning I woke with more neurological weirdness.  Also, much sadness, grief, brief flits of joy, and a massive jolt of paranoia.

Then there was the sensation fueling the need to walk fifteen feet to the bathroom with the sole aid of a beautiful, blue-flowered cane, and that undescribed sensation was quite near overwhelming.  You're welcome.

What could so dissuade a person in such a state of need?  Oh, come now.  You must be one of my unfamiliars!  Why, yes, of course, it was that indescribable, incomparable pain, swelling and SimultaneouslySadisticPain&Swelling&Crunching-of-Smooshy-Joints.

If you're an adept at English Language and Orthography in the Preferred Style of Concision?  First, you'd never be able to type THROUGH such agony as a pain management "distraction" technique, and B) you've probably left my blog site by now, having rewritten this entry:


She woke cranky, had to use the bathroom, but found it too painful to walk. In a display of writing weakness and abuse of the English language, she took to badmouthing her small imaginary audience. It is in this wretched state that we leave her for something worthy of copying to our Gratitude Journal, before we watch the afternoon stretch lazily before us as we scrapbook and down sweating pitchers of Gin-and-Tonic with a group of nattily-dressed undoubted girlfriends.

Stuck in bed, and with three cats stuck to me, I took half of my day's allotment of breakthrough pain medication (taking care not to die laughing) and said the magic words:  "I will begin to feel much better in 15 minutes, 30 minutes, tops." 

I also attempted to break free of the feline attachments, with about as much success.  Marmy hissed and reattached herself to the other hip. Buddy was kind enough to re-circumnavigate his perfect circle, this time without his huge tail poised upon my swollen knee.  Dobby purposely stepped on my shin in replicating Marmy's philosophy, giving me a well-timed very un-Dobbish glare.

It was two hours past their feeding time, and Dobby is on a diet.

Using the cane and two grabbers (for differing purposes), I retrieved the laptop from its sleeping position and wrestled it onto a pillow to approximate an extensive, flat lap. Eyeballed emails. In a check of Feedjit, I noticed yet another group of blog visitors to an Ochoa=Turd entry, one with a new comment.  

And off I went on a comment binge.  The Ochoa=Turd addition turned out to be spam -- quite appropriate. Then older comments hit my eye (ouch) -- as in, see the post previous to this one!

It's now many hours later, during which time, yes, I made it to the bathroom, and then to the wheelchair, then to my few morning duties.  Yes, yes, I fed the Feline Triumvirate and they proceeded to lose all interest in me until my return to bed.  But!  But  I also made Fred his beloved sheet cookies of whole wheat flour, honey, almonds, raisins, and oatmeal.  The seasoning and leavening recipe portions are, regrettably, proprietary.  In so doing, I managed to burn my effed-up right hand when I forgot that parchment paper WILL slide off of a cookie sheet if said sheet is being tossed in a hot oven at a very odd descending angle. Yes, I spent a good few minutes feeling stupid.
Then I tended Buddy's unique version of hairballs.  Yes, he managed to avoid most of the easily cleaned flooring in favor of a seagrass mat.  Yes, I was tempted to allow the impact of Time to make those two huge blotches blend in with nature's rug, but concluded that was just too gross.

Back to bed I finally made it.  My right foot was now huge, as was the whole lower leg and knee, but did I abuse my pain management agreement and take a second breakthrough dose of medication? No, I did not.  I finally remembered the now cold coffee I'd made, timed to be ready just a few minutes after the extrication of the granola cookie mammoth from the evil hand-searing oven.  The cookie was now fully cooled, as well.  So die the dreams of our early waking, when that waking is, however, late in the eyes of The World.

Needing distraction again, and the Marlinspike Hall Domestic Staff (Genetically Indentured), Fred, Bianca (and therefore Sven, on TWO counts lazing in!) -- all now with the addition of well fed cats strewn about The Manor -- continuing their snoozing...  It must be a Tête de Hergé National Holiday, as there are a bunch of new ones this year.  Happy September Eighth!

I took up the laptop again.  I'd left the browser open to the tab listing the massive blog commentary since its inception in 2008, and on an OCHOA=TURD post.  (How many of those trailblazing posts are there now?  How many courts have ruled him the High Idiot Poster Boy for Doctors, Insurance Companies, and Malevolent Employers in all things related to CRPS?  And how many people have died, wasted away, or otherwise have become useless souls because of his greed, his lies and his handlers' infamy?)

I found these two comments left by a Blogger named ShadyNorma, whose Blogger profile is now blocked, and by my BFF/alter ego Bianca Castafiore:


2 comments:


  1. I saw a doc at OHSU who wanted to send me to him, as she put it he is an expert on CRPS. Glad I did't go.

    I have had it for over 3 1/2 yrs.
    Got so sick of the Docs that don't believe, lost my job, on SS, and broke! Work Comp says if I have it its not bad enought to recognize. I have never never experienced pain like this ever! I have in both hands after having Carpal tunnel release. That doc was a comp Doc Too.

    There are many days I think about killing myself just to stop the pain. But at least at this point I can't inflict that kind of pain on my loved ones.

  2. shadynorma, have you ever been seen by a good neurologist? have you joined RSDSA.org? there is hope out there, and competence! insist upon it, would you, please?

    as for the idiots who don't believe it exists, or who owe their existence and souls to insurance companies and workers comp, frustrate them with calm truth -- they hate that!

    if you can, simply refuse to deal with them, because they are nothing but a waste of your time.

    i think of killing myself every doggone day -- but then, who would run The Manor, who would safeguard The Haddock Legacy?

    shadynorma, lay it on the line with your loved ones -- and band together to make the best of life. get that pain treated, develop a treatment plan, fill your life with distractions, and live on!

    please come see us again, and tell us how you are doing. if you can get away, we'll keep a suite in the east wing all spiffy and full of flowers, ready for you to spend a long weekend, or the winter...




  3. ShadyNorma, I apologize for not chasing you down, chatting your ear off, listening to your story.  I apologize for not listening well, and not doing it repeatedly.
  4. Because one of those first thoughts, mixed in with prayers for my brother GB, aka "lumpy," and for Kate, and for Brayden, was a Lament, a drawn out wordless moan, complaining at having to live another day in what I consider a life without quality.
  5. Because, ShadyNorma, it's the phantom part of CRPS pain and spasms and swellings-unto-bursting and doctors/nurses who won't spend a few hours reading competent neurology, pain, and cutting-edge (O, for that cutting edge magic bullet mixed metaphor for cure!) research, rather than spouting a regurgitated source that was already dried putrid nonsense ten years ago!  It's that phantom pain that makes the people who honestly love and adore you have to walk away, to save their sanity, so that they can -- they and you both hope -- walk in again.
Because, ShadyNorma, this is the ONLY aspect of CRPS pain over which you have considerable control.  You can find answers for it, and with time and relentless application, achieve a measure of pain relief.  

I made a mistake about 2 weeks ago, after being admitted to the hospital for cellulitis in my right CRPS Type 2 (the old "causalgia").  I never claim a "10" on the infamous pain scale.  The scale is meaningless to me now, as I am NEVER below an 8, not really, and I reserve "the worst pain [I] can imagine" -- a ten -- for some unimaginable future.  So while being interviewed by the admitting nurse, I claimed a "9." This apparently triggered an automatic question on her handy-dandy bedside computer program asking about suicidal tendencies.  So used now to my former "team" who understood both the disease and my refusal to lie about suicide, I told the nurse, in what had to be an "inappropriate" affect:  "I think about suicide every day." 

I saw her whole body freeze.  Then I heard the follow-up question:  "Do you have a plan?"  In an appropriately serious tone, I answered, "No, of course not.  That's just a bad joke among people with CRPS." 

Too late.  My thoughtless honesty had "triggered" a psychiatric referral -- which thankfully never came. Someone, the charge nurse, I think, came in and explained that I'd set the big red ball rolling, and as he had some insight into intractable, long term CRPS, we worked that out.

ShadyNorma, the truth is that we can live through any physical pains, but when the people we HAVE to turn to when that pain becomes unmanageable show us deceit, disbelief, disinterest, and then give substandard, outdated "treatment," or no treatment at all as a result of that mindset?  Well, we are worn down and do become intimate with the seductions of suicide.

But you take that bazillionth cleansing breath, live through it (hopefully!) and tighten the circle of knowledgeable, up-to-date practitioners.  You try to get rid of your anger, or creatively vent it (are you blogging?), you honestly face suicide, probably daily, and by bringing it into the light, you defeat it.  Day by day.

You can contact me through a button on the left hand side of my Blogger Profile Page -- and I hope you will, as I care about how you are today, and what the past four years have been like,





© 2013 L. Ryan

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