Frustration

Do you ever get that feeling like everything in your life isn't necessarily going wrong but most certainty isn't working in your favour? I feel like that's how everything has been as of late: from my glasses, to understanding organic chemistry, to catching the bus, to doing laundry and then there is trying to get a date for my surgery. When will it be? Nobody knows.

Oh, and I must not forget pain thing; the never ending pain which is currently very, very poorly controlled and I am having immense difficulty concentrating and sleeping.  I just want to cry sometimes. I know this is the worst question somebody can ask, but why me?

Something to remember

I feel as though this verse applies to everybody, even if you are not a Christian, or if you don't follow any particular religion.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves. Love never fails. -1 Corinthians 13: 4-8

That my friends is what true love is like. As a Christian I believe that true pure love is reserved for Him, but that doesn't mean that I don't think it applies to everything.

Last attempt

On Friday, I went to see my usual pain doctor who combines a interesting and useful mix of traditional and western pain management techniques. What he did on Friday was actually injections into the scars around my right knee with 5% procaine. It actually relieved the pain...but 16 hours later it was back like it never went anywhere at all.

What does that mean? It means I'm out of treatment options, it means that I will be off to surgery in April. It also means that I will not be getting any pain relief between now and April...and then once April comes and I have the surgery I am going to be in a lot more pain for a while. So for the foreseeable future, I will be in pain.

As a side note, this is my 100th post!!!!!!

30 Day challenges

I thought about doing a 30 day challenge starting in February, a semester challenge was just a bit too much of a commitment. But I don't know what I should do...

My 30 day challenge right now should probably be to study o-chem everyday...but right now I have some serious pain and I can't even think about studying. The injections of procaine that my pain doctor did yesterday helped for about 16 hours...and now the pain that feels like it is in my femur is back with vengeance.

Pre- Med?

I want to be doctor, more than I can actually articulate with words (or actions for that matter), at the very bottom of my heart it is all I can think about. Its stressful though, my grades are not quite high enough to be competitive (I need another 2.6%), and I feel like I am constantly searching for things that will boost my resume. I wish sometimes that I didn't want to be doctor, my life would be much less stressful, I could take a course I actually liked instead of biochem and organic chemistry. I really want to be in the Human Kinetics program instead of Bio-med because their courses actually interest me...but I need the prerequisites to get into UBC's School of Medicine and I can't do that with the HK program (the courses are at the same time).

Its also really frustrating knowing that I will be competing against 2,500 other applicant's for a spot and none of them were dealing with chronic pain for their entire university careers. My mind feels like its in a deep freeze from the combination of pain, lack of sleep and stress. For most university students lack of sleep = studying late, for me its all the time. I don't study late because by 10pm I am so exhausted that getting ready for bed feels like the hardest task on earth. Nobody ever told me that chronic pain might crush my dreams.

I work my but off, and I get okay grades (good by most people's standards...but not by med school standards). I try to be involved in as many things as I can, but appointments get in the way or the fact that it takes me twice as long to do homework than other people means I have half the amount of free time. I'm tired, tired of having to fight so hard for something that I want so badly when others don't even seem to struggle. I'm afraid of applying to med-school because I know I won't get in, and I know that I will be crushed.

Fantastic!

There is somebody else like me! Somebody else who is in chronic pain and loves to ride bikes. Check it out!
http://limpingcyclist.wordpress.com/

Which reminds me...I should post more about cycling because it makes me happy.

"I've Been Fighting Things I can't See"

I have been listening to a lot of Switchfoot lately, specifically their new album Vice Verses (if you haven't listened to it you should check it out because its wicked). Its helped me think things through a little bit, sometimes music does that.

I have come to the realization that I am depressed because I am tired of trying to pretend to the world and to my self that my pain doesn't exist. It does exist. If you are somebody who has chronic pain that is reading my blog then you are likely 100% familiar with this. See, for me, sometimes I think to myself that there is noway that this pain can be real, how can something that science can't explain, something that you can't see or understand hurt so much? It must not be real, if imagine that its not then it won't be, and if I hide the pain from people around me then they won't know that it exists, which will give me more reason to believe it isn't real right? Wrong.

Before Dec. 19th, before I saw the surgeon in Vancouver I thought I had CRPS II, which is essentially something that you can't every really get rid of, if you are lucky you might get 2 years where you go into remission.To me, this type of disease seems like something that cannot possibly exist. No origin, no defined treatment, not certainty of a cure...seems like something that shouldn't exist right (it is real thing, just nobody can really explain how it happens quite yet)? Well, it does, but now that I have been diagnosed with a "Persistent Neuroma Syndrome" it made it real. A neuroma is something that is tangible, it has an origin, therefore the pain has an origin, therefore I can't pretend like it doesn't exist anymore because my logic is no longer an escape route.

Basically I have been hit the face with the truth, that my pain is 110% real. (Please don't get the impression that CRPS pain is not real, it is, very, very, very much so, it is just hard to grasp where the pain comes from using logic, I guess that is why they call it Complex Region Pain Syndrome...cuz its too complex for the most intelligent among us.) The diagnosis of a persistent neuroma syndrome is very much a blessing because it means that surgery is a treatment option for me, it also means that I could wake up from surgery completely pain free (well, obviously surgery is painful, but I mean after all that heals). At the same time, I have been forced to admit that my pain is not a figment of my imagination.

I've been fighting things I can't see. Thrive, by Switchfoot.

I Failed

Yup, that's right, I'm admitting to failing (I do it more than you think!). My semester in pictures is clearly not going to work out, so I might as well just come right out and say it: The picture blog is done.

Now don't go jumping to conclusions thinking that I am done blogging...I will try and do my very best to actually update this blog frequently.

As of late, I have been struggling to keep my head above water, I have this feeling of drowning on the inside. Everything lately has just seemed so overwhelming. I think that I might be struggling with a bit of depression right now. My pain has been pretty bad lately, a consistent 7/10 with the occasional spike. I have come up with a new way of describing one of the types of pain I feel though. Sometimes I get pain in my foot that starts at the top near the ankle joint and then spreads out like rain down to the sole of my foot. Its like I poured a glass of acid on my foot and is running off the side....

Sorry for that depressing imagery....not as cheerful as the idea of a semester in pictures, I know. But, that is how my life works. I wake up with pain, I go through my day with pain, I go to bed with pain and I often even dream in pain. (Do you know how many ways that your leg can be mutilated? A lot...and every night there seems to be a new method.)

I decided to book an appointment with a counselor on campus. I'm clearly depressed (I'm not going to kill my self, I have worked to hard for that), but thing is, I don't think anybody around me knows. Maybe I'm just good at hiding it, or they just can't tell, I really have no idea...I haven't exactly been making an effort to hide it or anything. 

Where am I?

Usually winter means snow, wind and freezing temperatures that makes going to class at 8 am less than enjoyable...but I seem to be wrong in my definition. The good thing is though is that my ankle hurts a lot more when it is really cold, so its kind of nice in a way, but I also really want to be able to ski. I guess we didn't need to include shoveling in The chore schedule after all! Its climate change in action people!

Winter 12?

A Semster in Pictures Begins

Organic Chemistry Lab 1, what fun!

Today kicks off the new semester and my first class of 2012! That also means my picture blog is starting up, and if I am going to present my life in pictures, I thought that I should present my life exactly how it is. Today I had my first Organic Chemistry class (sometimes I really wish I didn't want to be a doctor because this class will not be fun). I have my first lab on Wednesday and for the first time ever I have both a lab manual and a lab notebook...I guess they are training us to be something like real researchers now? So I did my pre-lab this evening....

Wisdom

I don't know why they call them wisdom teeth...I don't feel anymore or less wise now that they are gone from my mouth. But I can tell you that I have a large bruise on my face that is bigger than a toonie, and that I can't eat solid foods. However, so far I haven't had any nerve pain spread to my mouth or anything of that sort happen, so I think I am in the clear (fingers crossed, knock on wood).

I also have an ear ache...Here is to starting a new semester looking like I got in a bar fight!

Everybody, their mother and their brother's dog has a blog

Okay, so I used to be the only one out of my friends that had a blog, but now it seems every person I know is blogging! So I figured I should start again...and I guess the new is year is as good as time as any.But I have decided that while my room-mate Sarah's blog is pretty cool and my friend Maggie started an  awesome blog about her journey through the bible from Genesis to Revelations, I am going to do a semester in pictures starting from the first day of Classes on Jan. 9 to my last exam. I don't know what my blog will become after the semester ends, but I can't really think more than 4 months ahead anyway.


In some other news, I saw a plastic surgeon on Dec. 19 in Vancouver, and he said that instead of having CRPS (Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome) I have a Neuroma Syndrome instead. Which in a way was a relief for me because 1) it means that there is hope that this pain might end and 2) a Neuroma Syndrome better explains my symptoms than CRPS does. In April, after exam are finished, I will be heading down to Vancouver to get my leg sliced open once again, but this time it just might work. Apparently, if you crush the nerve that has a neuroma (intentionally causing injury) and then implanting into tissue such as bone or muscle (bone in my case as I requested it, my nerve being in my muscle doesn't really work out so great with me being a cyclist). It will be painful recovery I am sure, but short term pain long term gain right? Hopefully. This surgeon is the only one in Canada who does this surgery, so lets hope it works!

Oh and tomorrow I will be having all 4 of my wisdom teeth removed! I also won't be sedated, so it should be a fun next few days.

So keep checking this blog daily starting on Jan. 9. It is my new years resolution to try and and take a picture everyday for 4 months.