Tuesday, July 15, 2008

My Chronic Pain is Showing

I suppose for as many of us that understand every day pain, there
are just as many that have either no idea what it is, or many in my
life that have no idea that I deal with it daily. Or at all.

I
must realize that I do not wear a sign on my forehead and one on my
back that says, "I suffer from Chronic Pain." The other nurses I work
with have no idea unless I TELL THEM! I also realize that again I, and
others that fight this battle of pain, are being judged on our outside.
Remember the old, "But You LOOK Good!" comment, and way of thinking. If
I am walking into work with a smile as I usually do, am dressed nicely,
hair out of the way for work, fixed up well, and a hint of makeup so I
don't scare anyone away, why would anyone even have the word 'pain'
associated with me? So again, it takes those of us that experience
pain, to tell and educate those around us that are in our lives, what
chronic pain is like. What it does to me. At home, at work, on a date.
It is all my life, my hours, my minutes. Living in a world that no one
knows of until they are told. I have let go of all expectations in my
life. My years here have taught me that!

How are we to inform
everyone that crosses our path for more than a few moments, that I am
hurting? That I cannot bend over to look at that one patient's back,
take that one blood sugar sample, that one 'ouchie' that needs to be
looked at. I am not a lazy nurse. I have bent, squatted, and cried
later in private as the pain comes surging back; or cried because the
pain has not left. Yet. And may not leave that one day. I have written
before that on my days off, I am hit by pain 100% harder than the days
I work. Is it truly distraction only? Is the pain there but just not
noticed because I have been handed 12 follow-ups from the am shift and
I need to call 5 doctors before their offices close? I have 2 hours to
fit a days worth of calls into. Most of the time, I get out of rounds
with the nurse leaving, get report from them, and handle all the CNA's
that are either there with questions or deal with call offs. All this
while the minutes tick away and the docs get closer and closer to
leaving their offices.

Having lived with one of our docs for a
decade, I know the docs side of things. The calls that would come from
the exact place I work, at the oddest hours, and with the stupidest
things. Not that any report to a doc is stupid, but cmon, a lab result
that is not that high or low at midnight? We've been in bed trying to
get some sleep as his pager would go off, I'd hear the call and who had
called, as he'd return the call, only to be told something that truly
could have waited till the morning. This is what I try and pass to the
nurses now, that I have seen the other side, very very close, and I
know the docs are not going to answer the calls I am asked to make. And
I have now gone off my main topic a bit!

My pain is showing. I
have been offered another position at work, passing the meds; yet I can
not push the cart without pain. I have wanted to push the carts around
when I got a minute at work, but that minute has never come, and I've
yet to try it out. Since my DON knows about my pain, and hired me
knowing about it, she now needs me to get a note from my pain doc
saying I can push, pull or lift a certain amount of pounds. I know
myself that the carts are not going to be the answer. It is how can I
make them adapt to my pain that is the true answer. Pull a stool along
with me is one idea, in case I need to check blood sugar, requiring
most just to stand and bend to the patient's height in bed, while I
could try using the stool. I may need to sit down for a few minutes if
that is even possible, while many patients wait for their pain pills,
some putting on their lights to ask for them when I would not be in
their area with the meds yet. Which requires stopping what I am doing,
and preparing the meds, walking them to the patient. I do not know if
that is my answer at work. The desk has been good for my pain, although
it has reared it's ugly head a few days at work, not responding to my
meds, or the distraction of work.

Can I adapt? Can I keep the
ball rolling? Can I keep my job? Of course I can keep it. It is how I
can make my job adaptable to my shortcomings physically that is my
biggest problem right now. I will think of anything that is going to
help me be more flexible in my job. Oh, to be 30 again. To go back to
the days before the surgeries and procedures started. The days when I
had yet to really feel the Osteophytes. Before I had total Spinal
Stenosis. Before the bone growths had gone into my spinal cord in
several different levels of my Thoracic Spine. But those days are past.
I will not look back and wish. It is time to figure out a few
interesting adaptations for my job.

I'm a strong-willed
person. And I love my profession. It is the times I see myself in my
patients that really scares me. When I feel that I could easily be in
that bed, awaiting pain medications, yet knowing it is not my time, I
know that I must tap into my will. I have done it all my pain-filled
life.

And I will not give in now.