Ch-ch-ch-changes

I’ve been in more extended pain for the last three months than I can remember in any of my 45 years. I feel about 100 most days. Walking hurts. Sitting hurts. Standing hurts. And that’s with more medication than I’ve ever taken in my life. And I’m walking with a cane.

Nothing helps.

There’s always a background pain. It’s usually dull, but sometimes throbs. And some times it feels like someone is putting an ice pick under my kneecap. Or maybe has stuck an electrode deep inside my leg and turned up the voltage to maximum power.

It’s white-hot, like being struck by lightning in one tiny random spot, and it tears through my entire body in an instant. I feel it for hours. Every step hurts, and I don’t know which will trigger the lightning again.

When it hits, I double over and grab on to my cane for dear life. I don’t want to end up on the floor. If anyone’s around, they’ll ask me if I’m okay in that sort of “did you just have a heart attack” voice. I have to reassure them that I’m fine so they don’t call 911 and really complicate my day.

It happened today when I was with my sister, who was shopping for shoes. I went to stand up, but ended up doubling over, instead. I must have made a noise, because the woman facing me asked if I was okay in a vaguely European accent. I told that I was. I just had a problem with my hip.

“Apparently so” was her cool reply. I had scared her children, I’m afraid.

I’ve seen five doctors, had 3 MRI’s, an EMG, a nerve conductivity test and x-rays. I found out I had a pinched nerve in my back and had a cortisone injection into a bulging disk in my spine. (I don’t know if it hurt or not: they put me all the way under for that. I had a nice buzz for a day or so from the anesthesia, though.)

The real culprit is my hip. I have early arthritis and torn cartilage. I don’t know what causes arthritis or how I tore the cartilage. I only know that it hurts all the time and sometimes more than others.

I’m tired of it. Tired of walking with a cane. Tired of reassuring people that I’m not having a heart attack when what I really want to do it let out a primal scream. Tired of the lightning turning me into a feeble old man.

I’m tired of doctors’ offices, out-patient surgical hospitals, radiology clinics and blood work. I’m tired of being poked, prodded, x-rayed and scanned. I’m tired of the pharmaceutical regime. Of staring at the clock, waiting for it to be time to take more meds so I might get a modicum of relief.

I start physical therapy later this week, and I’ll see how that goes. I’m giving it a month to help. I see the orthopedic surgeon in about a month, and if I’m not significantly better, we’re going to talk about the “nuclear option”: surgery. I more or less dismissed that as a possibility when I saw him a couple of weeks ago, but it's on the table now and a real possibility, and I want more details.

While I may seem to be have unrealistic expectations about physical therapy, I have some very real time constraints. My health insurance is up for renewal, and I have no idea what my coverage will be July 1 and won’t know until late May. The whispers in the breeze say get ready to pay more for less.

I’ve been lucky to hold onto a plan that the insurer no longer offers to new customers but has renewed for several years. The wind tells me it’s going to change, and, if I’m going to have surgery, I need to do it now while I can still afford it.

Also, July is when work heats up as we prepare for our annual financial audit. I don't want to take any great amount of time off between July and September.

Besides, I’m tired of the pain and want it to go away. It’s over-riding my irrational fear of needles and doctors and hospitals. When I learned that I would have to have dye injected directly into my hip joint for the last MRI, my blood pressure jumped 20 points. In reality, it was uncomfortable for a few seconds a couple of times. It wasn't nearly as bad as I'd built it up in my mind to be.

The MRI wasn’t too bad, either. I watched Reba McEntyre and Alec Baldwin at Carnegie Hall doing a concert presentation of South Pacific on the nifty goggles they provided. (I provided the DVD. I doubt any radiology clinic in the world would have it.)

I get so worked up about this kind of stuff that I don’t even want to consider something like surgery, but I’ve never lived with this kind of constant, continual pain. I’m tired. I’m worn out. And the wind is changing.

So am I.