Chronicle of Pain

Chronic pain is that smelly guy who no one remembers inviting to the party, but he just won't leave. Nine years ago I was involved in a training accident while deployed overseas. If you can imagine this, it was a HMMWV on a spit so that it could spin. When it started to spin, the guy in the gunner nest snapped loose from his harness and slammed into the side of my head and neck. I grabbed onto him and held him as best as I could while the vehicle rolled.

The immediate pain was in my neck, shoulder, and right arm. But it wasn't broken and the medics basically told me to rub dirt on it, drink water, and walk it off. Anytime I would wear my body armor for longer than a few hours, my arm would ache. My neck would feel cold and numb. My shoulder made clicking noises when I did pushups. Firing my weapon was fine, except if I had to walk or run beforehand, then I would have an almost uncontrollable tremor in my right arm.

Back in the States, things were not much improved. The big thing everyone was talking about was Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). They asked me if I had ever had my "bell rung" or had been hit in the head. I said yes. I went to the TBI clinic to get tested, I was quickly assessed as not having TBI and sent away. I still had pain, so I went to see the docs. They told me to suck it up and drive on.

I got to another unit and saw their doctors. They took X-rays and found nothing wrong. So they had me do two rounds of physical therapy (about six months?) and chiropractic therapy. It was a cycle of misery: I would get a profile (a document explaining my physical limitations) from the docs, then I would do physical therapy, then it would be time for me to do a PT test (physical fitness test) and I would train up for it, come off my profile to do the test, pass it, go back on profile. It took a toll on my body.

Then I moved again. I have had the best medical care of my career here. An MRI revealed that I had foraminal  stenosis in my upper and lower back and a pinched and bulging disc in my lower back. A Nerve Conduction Study showed that I have loss of nerve transmission in my bicep. I have some permanent damage and it causes me to be in pain all the time. If you don't have chronic pain, I will try to explain.

When I get up in the morning, I get up carefully because I don't want to make my back hurt worse. Staying still for so long hurts my back. My arm hurts most mornings, but some mornings it will feel like an electric shock running down my arm and up my neck. I have constant, unending pain in my right sciatic nerve running from my low back down to my foot along the back of my leg. When I'm eating, when I'm driving, when I go for a walk or hug my children- that pain is always there. It's not a low level of pain, either. Imagine someone stuck you with a pin. You would say "ouch" at first. When do you stop saying it? How long after the pin is inserted to stop explaining why it hurts?

What are your thoughts? Do any of you suffer from chronic pain or have a loved one who does?