Being Sarah

It is officially the end of the world as I know it, and I don’t mean that in a good way.

To set the scene of this somewhat manic post, on April 4th, 2011 my life took a turn for the worse. When I was driving from work to meet a friend for dinner, a drunk driver looked down to send a text message while she was driving and veered into my lane. I reacted as quickly as I could, and I narrowly avoided being hit head on. However, her driving was too unpredictable for me to avoid it entirely.

Before I had time to comprehend what was going on, she collided with my driver’s side door and sent my car into a tail spin. Next thing I knew, I was in the front seat of my car, pushing the air bag away from my face, and searching for my phone and purse. The only thing I could hear was the sound of my horn. In the accident it had been set off, and even after I had shakily taken my keys out of the ignition the horn continued to screech.

I remember cleaning the glass from my window off of my body, taking my keys in hand, and searching for my phone which had flown into the back seat during the accident. As I undid my seatbelt, I started to feel some pain in my shoulder. Phone and keys in hand, I put pressure on my shoulder and got out of the car.

I remember seeing myself outside the car. It seemed like an out of body experience. I scanned the damage and was devastated to see that the back axel of my car had been broken in half and was detached from my vehicle. I looked to my left and saw people running my way to help. This was when I noticed the lump of swelling in my left shoulder.

The woman from the other car, who I later discovered was heading home from a bar just a few blocks away, came over and hugged me tightly. She expressed how sorry she was and that she was glad that I was “okay.” Soon after law enforcement and emergency responders arrived. The rest of the evening was a blur of medical care, scans, and being strapped to a very uncomfortable board in the hallway of an ER for many hours because they were too busy to attend to me.

In the days, weeks, and months that followed I saw many doctors, physical therapists and related health practitioners, not to mention a lawyer.

I found out that I have damage to my lower back/spine, chronic lower back pain, and unexplainable pain stabbing between my shoulder blades. After months of feeling like I lived in my doctors waiting rom and an unreasonable amounts of testing and treatment (3 MRIs, 2 nerve tests, 2 sets of spinal injections, and months of physical therapy, as well as many other tests I can’t recall the names of), I am still in pain and absolutely miserable.

For the first time in my life, I am unhappy. Actually, unhappy is an understatement. I am depressed, sleepless, chronically anxious, and on a slue of medications to manage these issues. Please note, prior to this, I have always been an extremely happy, glass half full, optimistic person. Some people have refereed to me as a “ray of sunshine.” But not anymore…

In addition to feeling like I live at a doctors office, I have been taking narcotics to manage the pain for over nine months. At this point, they only work to minimize the pain because my body has adjusted to the drug.

A few weeks ago, I made the decision to end my treatment and ween myself off of the drugs. My doctor is happy to continue to prescribe them and thinks it is the only way to manage my pain, but I am no longer happy to live my life in a medicated daze.

For the last week, I have been allowing myself one pill a day to minimally manage the most intense bouts of pain. The pain is constant, but there are some times where it is intolerable. These times are usually when I am working on a project and have been standing up in from of the class for hours or sitting at my desk grading.

Just a few minutes ago, I realized my ability to minimally manage the pain is about to end. I took my pill of the day and looked into the bottle. There is one pill remaining.

I recognize that I consciously made the choice to stop medication and seek non-medical treatments for my pain. However, today is the day when the world as I know it begins to end, and when I take the last pill tomorrow, the world as I know it will come to a halt.

I know that I am addicted to the medication. I feel anxious when I think about not having it. I feel sad and out of control. I dwell on the fact that I will feel severe pain every day and every night until I find a non-narcotic solution. However, I am ready to bare that burden.

I am ready to once again look the world in the eyes and conquer my battle with pain and misery. Because of my decision, it is going to get worse before it gets better. I am certain of this. However, for the first time in also a year, I am confident enough to say that IT IS GOING TO GET BETTER.

I don’t know how, and I have explored and worked hard at/endured all of the options that have been presented to me thus far to manage my pain, and none of them have helped. As a matter of fact, some of them have hurt me more than they have helped me. That said, I am ready to cure the pain. I am done being miserable and being in pain. I will find the cure. I will not continue to subject myself to a life of tests, procedures, and drugs. I will fix this. I will be whole again.