Odes, Horses, and Drugs are Bad... mmmmmkay?

Ode to My Body:

I hate you, and I hate pain. Stop being such a prick.

Love,

Matt

Well...

Really I wish that's all I could write, but I must admit I do feel especially crappy tonight. I'm sleepy but wired, not in the mood to do anything, so I figure I might as well sit here and type for fun.

But, there's also the pain. I've had some good nerve pain today which has really been fun when combined with the headache I get. Seems my headaches have been worse in the evenings as of late, and only mild in the mornings. But, the mornings have been more nerve pain than anything. I'm going through pain medication like a junkie, and I'm not really able to fully get rid of the pain ever, just lessen it.

For those of you that have never had nerve pain, imagine a stabbing pain that runs down an affected limb or area. It's not pleasant. Unfortunately I've grown all too comfortable with dealing with this type of pain.

Why you ask?

Well, the latest injuries are not the first time that I've dealt with nerve pain. Shortly after the wife and I got married, I quit my job as a Pizza Boy, and took on a job with my sister in law's fiance (at that time, now they're just friends). Well, me being the big boy at the time, and a full 50 lbs lighter than I am now, I got stuck carrying all the really heavy stuff. Taking my end of a grand piano, massive entertainment units, and many other large and retardedly heavy objects became the weight on my shoulders, and unfortunately on my lower back. We had a contract through the local electric company (BC Hydro) where we would go around and pick up people's old fridges that they wanted to recycle, and in turn they got a small sum of money from BC Hydro. These fridges could be anywhere - on the edge of the road ready to go, in someones kitchen, in their downstairs basement, out on their deck, and of course up mile long driveways that were sometimes uphill on the way down.

My boss was a bit lazy at times, and to make things quicker he'd fill out the paper work and I'd throw the fridge into the truck. This truck was a 7 ton moving truck that had a deck height of about 4.5 to 5 feet, as it as a multi-use straight truck. I'd lean the fridge against the truck after taking it off the dolly, lift up the bottom and deadlift it to my waist, snatch it to shoulder height while leaning back, and then push it in on it's side so that it'd go in to the truck laying down. I'd climb up, and then lift it yet again, move it into a safe place, and strap it in.

We'd do 10 to 30 of these in a day depending on the route, or location. After, we'd get to throw them out of the truck into a pile at the recyclers, which was likely the most satisfying part of the job.

Too bad my back did not agree.

I soon developed an issue with my sciatic nerve in my lower back. I was only a couple of weeks away from going to take the United Van Lines course in Toronto, all expenses paid. This would have certified me for getting my own truck as an owner operator, and a gross income yearly of 100 to 120 grand, working 3 to 7 days a week depending on the time of year. I had to back out of the course, and soon after quit my job since I was unable to lift things. I spent the next few years seeing doctors that were unable to figure out the issue, as I had constant lower back pain, and nothing ever showed out of place.

Eventually with the workouts I did, and some more strength in my core as well as some fat lost to get me close to my weight as a mover, the pain lessened and slowly dissipated. It now only flares up occasionally if I move wrong, turn my neck at the wrong time, or lift things that are too heavy.

Not that I can lift anything right now at all anyway, which is part of the reason that I'm getting some of the pain occasionally again.

That brings me back to my body, and how much I hate it.

After quitting the moving job, I took a job at a call center doing tech support for MSN as well as taking a second job at the Walmart Photo Lab. I worked both for about 6 months, and then quit Wally World since I was burned out as I was doing full time hours at both plus picking up overtime when available. I needed a job sitting, and both helped with that, and helped me with the back pain and issues from the nerve pain in the left leg.

Then I moved into my current place of employment, working for a large Canadian ISP doing tech support. After being there for a couple of years, the wife and I managed to get away to Oregon for our fifth anniversary. We had fun, went horse back riding, and took the ranch owners offer up of going for a Sunday afternoon ride on the beach the day before we left. I asked him to bring a horse along that had a bit more pep - I've ridden off and on throughout my life, am decently familiar with horses and am familiar with galloping. Galloping was something that the horse that I was riding the first day out did not want to do.

And bring a peppy horse he did.

We all arrived at the beach at around noon or so, and got saddled up and hopped on the horses. Within a minute, my horse was prancing around, and then took off on me. I was still getting myself fully set up in my stirrups when the horse took off on me, and threw me into the semi hard sand on the side of this river that was feeding into the ocean. I got up, dusted myself off and realized that my right wrist felt a bit fuzzy and weak. Whatever I thought, likely just landed on it wrong and sprained it.

Not the one to lose to an animal, I hopped back up on the horse. That might have been the single most stupid thing that I've ever done in my entire life.

I should have called it quits. I should have tried my fingers out and made sure my wrist was ok. But no, me with super pain tolerance hopped back up, and we all set back out. We rode down Cannon Beach to the northern end of the beach, and all was fine. The horse and I were in a groove, moving as one, and nothing was awry. That is, until we turned around and the wife got a bit ahead of me. I tried to slowly catch up, and lightly gave the horse a tap in the ribs with the stirrups to get going up to a quick trot.

Apparently trot to this horse meant gallop. And gallop meant be an ass and go as fast as horsely possible.

We tore down the beach. I don't really remember this, but I've pieced it together from what the wife has told me. I ripped past the wife at full gallop, and she knew something was wrong because I looked pissed right off. I was.

The rancher had given me some advice, and me being quick to react decided to try what he told me.

"Reach forward and grab the bit in the horses mouth if he takes off again. If you pull on the bit, he'll have to slow down as he'll go into progressively tighter circles", he said...

I reach forward as far as I could with my left hand, hold in the reigns with my right, and tried to grab the bit. FAIL. I grabbed mane, and the horse went faster. I reached again, saddle horn nailing me in the stomach as we ripped across the beach, right hand pounding from hanging on so hard, and missed.

At this point, everything goes a bit fuzzy.

As I reached forward again with the left hand, my right foot came out of the stirrup. I bailed as my body flailed from the galloping motion. My left foot somehow came right out of the stirrup on the way down somehow so I thankfully wasn't dragged when I landed.

What I did do though is land on sand. Now, you're thinking sand, nice soft safe sand. Yup, nothing like awesome soft sand to fall in.

Not.

I was riding along the ocean remember? And how close was I riding to the surf? 15 feet or so, and the tide had just gone out and uncovered this sand. Sand that was packed as hard as concrete from the hundreds of thousands of tons of water that covered it only an hour or less before.

I came off the horse, and the best I can figure from the damage incurred, I landed on my right hip on the first fall, rolled over my head and neck, then onto my right lower back, and did this a couple of times that I rolled lengthways, skidding for about 40 feet and making little to no impression on the sand. I weighed 265 at that time, so you can imagine how hard the sand was if I barely marked it up.

People on the beach ran towards me. I tried to sit up, but I could see nothing except sand and black. The rancher came and checked on me, and helped me to a log a short distance away, where my wife and the rest of his other riders had gathered to make sure I was ok, and to start heading back to pack things in. I know that I told them all to go back and ride, and the rancher came back to check on me every few minutes. All I know is that black sky and sand at that time didn't click in my head, and there's still some fuzziness after that.

Eventually they did finish their ride, and they let me know that they'd meet me back at the truck, where our car was also parked. It was about a mile away. I was then left along to find my way back.

I was so dizzy and in so much pain, I could only take a couple of steps at a time. It took me a very long time to walk what normally would take me 15 minutes. By the time I showed up, everything was packed away and they were waiting for me.

Again, they checked me over to see if I was ok. Again, me being of stubborn ilk and high pain tolerance said I was fine. The rancher tried to give me the money back, and I told him we had an agreement - I rented a horse from him and he provided it. I should have just taken the damned money and walked away. But, we shook hands (right hand) and he told me I was fine, as I still had a good firm handshake.

Well, I sure did. But there's no way I should have.

Things do get more interesting. The night before we left on vacation the wife was on her way home from her parents and turned a corner in our old 2 door car. A deer decided to try to get in, but forgot to open the door, or even to wait for the car to stop. A buck butted into the passenger door, damaging it pretty heavily and making it impossible to open. So remember, we're dealing with a small 2 door car that was now a small 1 door car. And on vacation I usually do all of the driving.

I remember driving myself out of there, but I was pretty much out of it at that point. The wife drove me to the doctors who was closed, so she went to the hospital. By this time my body was starting to feel the toll of what had happened. She had to get a wheelchair and push me into the hospital as I couldn't walk.

I was in ER right away after a couple of quick forms were completed, and had 3 or 4 nurses helping me. Xrays on my hips since I could hardly walk, and on my right wrist.

Turned out that I had broken my scaphoid in my wrist, and 2 other bones - another wrist bone and one in the palm. As well, I had severe hematoma on my right hip and right lower back where my hips decided to swell to an incredible size - something that I have to this day, though the swelling has done down, but after 2 years it's still there. I also gave myself a concussion, and a rather good one. I regularly forget things that were easier to remember before knock on the noggin. I get arthritic like pain in the wrist when the weather changes, and sometimes if I move it too much, write, or play video games (something I rarely do anyway).

But, this brings me to current, and nerve pain.

The best that can be figured after Xrays, CT Scan, Electromyography, extensive chiro, massage, and physio have determined that I have a Brachial Plexus injury, which is a trauma induced into the nerve trunk coming out of the neck and into the shoulder. It causes pain in the shoulder, neck, left arm down to my fingers, occasionally right arm, and a side effect of muscle cramping and stiffness that caused tension headaches equivalent to migraines.

I'm doped up, and have been for 10 of the last 11 months since this injury occurred. For the nerve pain I'm up to 1800mg of Gabapentin per day (max dose allowable is 2400mg, and that's for epileptic patients which I am not), or 450mg of Pregabalin (max allowable is 600mg in epileptic patients). Normal dose is 150mg/day. I have to switch back and forth every two weeks or so as both lose the ability to block nerve pain.

For headaches I'm using roughly 6 Tylenol 3's with codeine per day - that's two more than recommended. Bear in mind that I only use that when the headaches get really bad, like tonight. I use that in conjunction with Ketorolac, which I'm taking 30mg/day and have been doing so for weeks now. It's only supposed to be used for 5 days at a time.

Lastly, everyone's favorite muscle relaxant - cyclebenzaprine, otherwise known as, "those little house shaped pills". I go through half the max of that per day at 30mg.

With all that, I don't remember much of the last year, and honestly I would give up the next year of my life, and every experience in it, to not feel the pain that comes with it. I'd love to just wake up a year from now and be fully operational. It's getting to be a pain in the ass to live in this mortal shell that feels like it's falling apart.

Speaking of sleep, I'm going to go get some of the that. It think sleep is a great thing right now, as it's my only real time that I'm not dopy, and not in pain.

Cliff notes: I hate my body and horses.

Ranfully yours...

Matt