June 17, 2010

So, it's been awhile.

Pain today - - all day - - -all week. Its been tough this week. One week of independence and freedom from SFN and the next week it attacks. As I sit here with my feet and legs in anodyne units...I am stuck, literally for 1.5 hours and I am sick and tired of sitting on my ass. Literally, tired of this. I watch people walking their dogs out my front room window and wonder if those people realize what a job their feet are doing. Do they have a realization that they are walking with no pain? Do they know that what their body automatically does, mine does NOT; without pain...without wincing....without scrunching up my shoulders and face from the excruciating pain?

Someday.

So, I get up at 12 midnight and 3 am, then 4 am - and try to get comfortable in bed with my CPAP, oxygen tube, and heating pad (feet). I am 46 and old already.

I know why people commit suicide from pain. I know what frame of mind they are in when they make that choice. I know that over 1 year of this has aged me 10 years; in my face i have frown lines instead of smile. I so wanted smile lines on my face, to age beautifully so that people would know i had a wonderful life. I am sad.

2nd day of Blog

Boy, this might be a very boring blog....

Anyway, today, I could only work 1/2 a day. My boss is getting tired of this stuff and I don't blame him...but I do appreciate all he has done for me to date.

So I went swimming, which is the only thing that allows me to be functional the next day. The pain was excruciating. I hit my feet on the edge of the pool and about screamed out loud, but my hubby was there to grab my hands and hold them tight until the pain passed.

Did I say, this sucks? I apologize for the language but there are just some words that describe it!

Small fiber nerves are the ones that are the pain, AFTER you burn your finger on the stove. It is those fibers that keep the brain from wondering where they all went. I have been told by my Neurologist that nerve fibers will grow back. But it's been a year - I can walk without a cane, but barely. My life has changed.

I have wept when I see someone walking their dogs, or holding their lovers hand as they walk by our house. Joggers? Well, I just stare at amazement. I wonder if they know how lucky they are to have the use of their feet/legs/nerves!!! They are truly lucky...

Annie's First Blog

So this is the first Blog. I wonder how many Blogs begin with this sentence.

I am a "normal" middle-class forty-something, married woman, who has been experiencing a diagnosis of "Small Fiber Neuropathy" for over a year, now. This is a newly diagnosed illness that entails extreme pain of the feet, legs, and sometimes other appendages. What is happening physiologically is that the small nerves, (there are only two types of nerves in the human body, large fiber and small fiber), are missing in the areas affected. The brain, not understanding the lack of signals from these missing nerves continues to send out signals, with no "answer" on the other end - - thus causing extreme pain.

I have no idea why this illness has hit me...could be from a bad flu in May '09 or my "inability to process sugar" or pre-diabetes.

In any case this really sucks. I know I am supposed to be a trooper and grin and bear it...no way, I say...