Saturday, June 23, 2007

You Never Appreciate Something Until it is Gone

Today it really hit me...I love cortisone! I know it is really bad for your joints, but it has afforded me so much relief, none of which I really appreciated until now.

I don't mean to complain, well, maybe just a little, especially because I tried complaining to my husband, J, and he answered me "which side hurts?..oh, the un-operated, who cares, is going to be fixed next week".

This is not a good answer to me, especially since I have been a lot better since my injection. I had the injection on May 1, I had one great week, basically pain free. After one week, I decided the injection wore off, but really, it didn't. I was no longer pain free, but nowhere near as bad as I was pre-injection (I guess a painscale would help here).

I had a slow increase in pain after the injection, but one day, I do remember thinking it was less pain than pre-injection. So I decided it did work.
I also began thinking about my first injection, and I had 2 good weeks, almost no pain, but then some pain, looking back, the pain never reached the pre-injection level again (surgery was about 1 month later).
So now, 8 days before my surgery, I long for another injection. I know, getting one now would be just plain stupid, but the pain is aggravating the hell out of me.

I understand now why I get patients with chronic pain, also on anti-depressants. No, I did not reach this level in a few days with pain, but I can see that I could reach this level quite easily if this was a long term thing.
I am also glad that I listened to myself, and pushed for an MRI and injection when this began, and that I continued to listen to myself and scheduled surgery.
I admit, there were days when I felt so good, I contemplated cancelling the surgery (don't tell J), but now I see that it was the cortisone talking!!!

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