This is about something that happens to me. I don’t know how to title the post so I’ve given up and gotten a title that’s the closest match to what I experience. Let’s start at the current state of things and say that I have nerve pain. The pain is hard to isolate to one specific area because the source of pain stems from spinal cord damage in my neck and since all nerves below that point can be involved via the spinal column, a lot is up for grabs in the pain area.
Back to the pain though. Neuralgia is a good word to use, but it’s generic and doesn’t offer much help really. The pain I experience is largely focused around my neck, shoulders forearms and arms, in order of magnitude. It’s similar, but different to the kind of pain you feel when you’re sick with the flu and your body is very, very angry every time you move as well as every time you stay still.
I thought I was an old person for a while and then I decided to ask my doctor about Lyrica. Lyrics helps. It helps a lot. People tell me it’s a “TERRIBLE HORRIBLE DRUG YOU ARE ADDICTED TO AND YOU SHOULD SUFFER INSTEAD OF USING IT” and then I get the other end of the spectrum where my medical doctors tell me it’s one of the most mild medications I could take for the symptoms I’m experiencing and they’re very glad it can control the pain without the use of narcotic alternatives.
I really hate talking to people who are so self-righteous about how bad medications are for you when they, themselves, haven’t suffered from debilitating pain for years and are desperate for any relief or solution. But that is another topic entirely and I am quite opinionated on the subject myself.
Let’s get back to the Lyrica. Typically I take a dose at 4:15AM. Why that hour? Because at 5:15AM my alarm goes off a second time to get up an exercise. If I’m in intolerable pain, the last thing I want to do is get out of bed. But, if I’m comfortably sleeping and I only need get up and get clothes on, I can move forward with my day, starting with exercise in the dark.
There is this “fuzzy sleeping” thing that happens on occasion. Usually I get up an hour after taking the Lyrica, but on rare occasions like today, I get to sleep in. My in-laws were here and they fed the children breakfast. I slept past the one hour mark from taking the Lyrica. I had been awake during the time change period because my son had had a nightmare. He and I had a talk in our bed and after he felt comfortable from talking the dream out, he wanted to go back to bed. It was at that time I was in a lot of pain. I wasn’t sure I could go to sleep because my shoulders and arms hurt so much. But I fell asleep.
When I awoke several hours later, I was comfortable. There was this mild fuzzy feeling in my arms and shoulders which I’m guessing is the calcium channel blocking effect from the Lyrica, and the pain was blocked. Lyric isn’t a narcotic. It’s not deleterious and it’s not something you notice when you’re up and moving around, but it does help. This morning was one of those times when I realized how much it helps me cope with the damage I’m dealing with.
The Big Boy Update: My children are allowed to use the iPads on the weekends. I came into the bathroom this afternoon to find my son on the bath mat, watching something on his iPad. I was in there for a few minutes working on several things when I realized he was watching a documentary on Uranus and Neptune, targeted at young children, narrated by Bill Nye, The Science Guy. I’m not sure how my son found the show, but I didn’t interrupt him.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Right eye gone? Today was a good eye day. Things were looking up earlier. But as of right now, after a game she wanted to play, I’m not sure the right eye is working at all and she’s having a hard time seeing things at all. This morning on our bike ride she could see things from a distance. My husband and I are so torn. We want to be positive but when we see negative things like we see right now, as of ten minutes ago, our faith in her eyes healing is shaken.
Fitness Update: Before the rain this morning my husband and I took the children on a bike ride with them on the backs of our bikes. We did a loop of six miles, colored only by me losing control and dropping the back at the worst turn/hill on the route. We were in the park and I needed a large amount of woods for the volume of my yelling. I was SO mad. I did everything right but my bike didn’t change gears quickly enough and I wasn’t able to recover when it did chunk into gear. I’m blaming the bike, but dropping your child on the ground and then having to right a bike with a heavy child on the back who is unhappy is very stressful. The bike seats are so well-designed. She was completely safe the entire time. We did the appropriate thing to handle the situation and talked it all out. She’s fine with what happened and I feel better for talking it through with her. She understands what happened and why I was so mad (I didn’t want to hurt her.) Other than that, we got home in light rain and had a nice lunch together at home as a family.
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