I was up in the night four times in frantic-mode, trying to find relief from this godawful pain. It's so cruel, because during the day I had some relief, but the Mac Truck hit me during the evening hours. Here I thought that maybe I was on the mend! That this pain was going to diminish! But no. Joke's on me.
Today has been a haze of red-filtered nothing-but-pain. I am utterly miserable. I'm not myself. I have no sense of humor, I have no desire to be NICE, I keep looking at the walls thinking that climbing them might help me escape from this. NOTHING helps. It's frustrating to me that society can put a robot on Mars, harness nuclear energy, invent jets that fly 10 times faster than the speed of sound, predict a lunar eclipse 100 years from now to the minute; BUT they can't make pain go away.
You know what "brain freeze" feels like? When you've eaten ice cream too fast or taken too big of a bite of a popsicle? Pretty awful, huh? Makes you shudder to think about it, but at least that pain goes away in a minute or so. This feels like "brain freeze" multiplied by 100 from my neck down my arm, and it never subsides. It's constant. How can people be expected to endure this?
I worked at home through a red haze for several hours this morning in my jammies (which I've never changed out of all day) with a heating pad and pain medication. (What's the big deal about hydrocodone, anyway? People covet this stuff and for why? I feel I may as well be taking a placebo). Sitting at my computer became unbearable so I took the heating pad and laid down on the couch with it and slept for almost four hours. I was so grateful to be able to sleep -- being unconscious is the only relief from this.
I guess "next" on the conservative treatment list (because that's how health care treats this kind of pain) is to seek a massage therapist, and if that doesn't do the trick, a chiropractor (and ignore their dire insistence that I come in several times a week for the rest of my life). Physical therapy was also suggested, but in the past it has never done anything beneficial for me.
And then I have the breast biopsy to contend with tomorrow morning. I'm really dreading it, and with that on top of this awful pain, I'm pretty much a basket case.
I'd really like to cry, but I'm beyond that.
