Living with Chronic Pain...

It's hard to know what to say. We are struggling. Some days are tough to get through. Some days are not so tough. Mostly I just feel helpless.

Bob has been through test after test after test, treatment after treatment, after treatment. The doctors are scratching their heads at the results. Nothing is really coming back with anything that is explaining the debilitating pain that he is in daily. The only real evidence is that he has eleven damaged disks in his back which were not giving him trouble till he started physical therapy last Fall. It doesn't explain the pain he experiences day to day in other places for the last three and a half years.

This last treatment they tried was to see if they could do a nerve ablation. In order to do that, they injected steroid shots in the area where they thought would be the nerves that were giving him the most trouble. It didn't work as the doctors suspected since the previous steroid shot treatment didn't work earlier this year.

From what we understand at this point is that what the doctors are suspecting is that when Bob had his gall bladder surgery, it disrupted his nervous system for whatever reason and now it is just misfiring. They see this in some people who have had surgery. It leaves them in debilitating pain. You just don't know how your body is going to react to a surgery.

This debilitating chronic pain could morph into a fibromyalgia state which we've kind of seen. His pain started in the gall bladder area and ran along that nerve that runs across the bottom of your rib cage to pain in his back, pain in his arms, pain in his sides. It's just pain....awful, awful pain. He wakes with pain, sleeps (when he can) with pain, eats with pain, lives with pain. It never ever goes away.

The deeply disappointing news is that there is no cure for it. For Bob, this means a life of pain management. We knew it could be a possibility but still held onto hope that there would be something they could do to fix it so that he could have some relief. It is a devastating blow to hear the reality that that is not going to be the case. That for the rest of his life we are going to be living with this. I say 'we' because this doesn't just affect him, it affects our whole family.

It affects how we start our day, how we do things, how we go places, how we go to bed for the night, it affects everything and every moment of our day as a family. It is hard for people to understand as it isn't something you can see until it builds up to a debilitating level which it does throughout the day based on his activity level or just because. Sometimes he crawls into the house after being somewhere because I can't carry him. Sometimes, he can't cut up his food, pour his coffee or take a shower. It's a very humiliating state to be in.

In spite of our recent eviction notice, our recent denial of disability for the second time, and facing the recent reality that this isn't curable, we are holding onto God, the One who created our bodies and knows our every pain. I am holding on to the promise that He will restore the years the locusts have eaten (Joel 2:25) that He is a strong tower (Provers 18:10) and He will provide what we need (Matthew 6:25).

Don't get me wrong, we've all experienced major frustration, deep disappointment and even anger. I've thrown my own set of temper tantrums and experienced doubt. Then I've had to quiet my soul and ask for forgiveness. God knows all of our thoughts even before we know them and yet, He still loves me, He accepts me for who I am and is deeply concerned about me.

I have to remember that His ultimate purpose in all of these trials is for my good and His glory. Not the kind of good I think of because to me that is all about my comfort here on this earth. His kind of good is all about the state of my heart spiritually. We are suppose to be becoming more like Him, less like the selfish me along with my faith being developed through tough times (James 1:2-4).

I am so thankful for the whispers of encouragement He sends through His people, for His unconditional love, and knowing that I don't have to try to 'do' this on my own. He promises to never leave or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5).