Suffocating

I feel overwhelmed by pain and pointlessness today.

I've spent hours trying to sort out the mess that my doctor has made of my insurance claim. The pain is unbearable, I'm taking morphine like Smarties and still I can't move. And I'm still shellshocked from yesterday's Pain Clinic appointment. It just feels like it's all going wrong, all going against me and there's not a damned thing I can do about it.

The doctor messed up the medical report that my insurance claim will depend on, and I've had to spend all afternoon writing letters to fix it. I feel like not only will it mean my insurance is denied, but it will sour my relationship with the doc, and I badly need his support. He'll have to find out what I've said, and it's all true, but what if he takes a dislike to me and gets difficult over prescriptions and sick notes! That terrifies me.

The fact that the pain is so awful right now only adds to that, as does the conversation with the consultant yesterday. He told me that I can keep hiking and hiking the morphine ad infinitum. Or I can try this new drug that offers the same kind of pain relief but with fewer opiates. So, fewer side effects.

Sounds perfect? Except for the fact that you can only take so much a day, and after that, if it's still bad, you have to 'find another option'. Which basically means you're fucked.

Take today for example. The pain went beyond 'normal' before 8am. My only option all day has been to throw morphine at it (which has only been partially effective, because I've had to force myself to stay awake and alert to sort out the doctor's mess). On this new drug, there'd be nothing you could throw at it. Which would mean a day in unbelievable agony, the like of which I can't even contemplate.

I'd never be able to tolerate it; I'd wind up slitting my wrists just to make it stop.

The info on this drug talks about it being tested against less than half the morphine I'm on per day. Which means the chances of it being in any way adequate are almost zero. Which in turn means I have no option other than constantly rising morphine levels.

It all seems so suffocating and deathly. I don't know how to navigate it. How do I keep surviving through all this. I can't. I don't want to. I just want to die.

Posted from Blogium for iPhone