I have numerous painful conditions, which I have had to deal with for most of my life. I never knew, until recently, that I was born with cervical vertebrae fusions and hyper thyroid disease. As a child my neck always hurt, but I never complained until the pain became unbearable, and when I finally told my mom she would give me couple of aspirins. Little did I know that this was merely the beginning of the path to living a lifetime with acute and chronic pain but also, eventually, finding the secret to living a happy life in spite of the pain.

When I became an adult I chose the U.S. Army over college, and served for nearly two years as an MP. My neck pain became worse, but I never complained. After I received my honorable discharge from the Army, I entered the physical labor work force after a failed marriage. I was filled with so much energy that I just couldn’t stand the idea of sitting at some desk job for eight hours a day. So, my quest was to seek out exciting and physical experiences. And, indeed, I succeeded! I built 50-100 foot yachts, worked as a house painter for years, bartended at night, spent two years driving an eighteen-wheeler and loading the electronic freight, worked as a certified nursing assistant in a nursing home (I was one of the loving and kind ones), and my last job was caring for an elderly man in his home for 13 years.

Needless to say, all of this physical labor took its toll on my body. The doctors say my neck looks like I was in a major car accident; I have bulging and herniated discs from C1-C7, with bone spur formations throughout my cervical spine. I blew out the cartilages in my left knee when I worked for the yacht company. While lifting a patient in the nursing home, the L2 and L3 discs were herniated in my lumbar. Somewhere along the line I was exposed to Hepatitis C. All of that surging energy, which never seemed to shut off, to the point of chronic insomnia, was later found to be related to an untreated hyper-thyroid issue. I have an enlarged heart, cause unknown, but in my opinion is related to my smoking induced bronchitis episodes I experience.

My knee continued to blow out for nearly 30 years after my surgeries in the 70’s, so I recently had to have a total knee replacement. I have now been diagnosed with degenerative disc and joint diseases. My liver enzymes (due to the Hepatitis C) went through the roof, so I endured one year (started January, 2002) on the interferon/ribavirin combination therapy, which has symptoms similar to those from chemo. I am afraid of needles, but three times a week, just when I was starting to feel better, I had to inject myself in the stomach or thigh with these chemicals that made me very ill. Living with all of this physical pain also caused me to become extremely depressed, so I had to start taking anti-depressant medications and sedatives.

Now, what I am about to say you will not believe, but I swear it is true!  I started the treatments (2002), which had some pretty bad side effects– my bones and joints felt on fire day and night, everything tasted of metal, I was nauseous and lost my appetite and a lot of weight, lost some hair, and almost succumbed to one of the most devastating of the side effects, which is major depression. What you won’t believe, though, is that this was one of the happiest years of my life. I kid you not! So what’s the secret? Read on.

Typically, severe depression sets in when a person has to endure so much pain, and this was a reality in my case. Trying to sleep with so much pain also led to chronic insomnia, which actually began when I was a child enduring the initial neck pain. For years, the doctors answered the need for relief with medications. Pain does cause a chemical reaction to the brain, so medications for depression and insomnia were prescribed for me, and narcotics and other medications for the physical pain. But, I have never liked that feeling I get from narcotics and muscle relaxants, zoning out and feeling groggy with my head in a fog. I like to think clearly, so I only took the pain medications when the pain level reached the 8-10 level.

I did not want to live my life in a fog because there was so much more I wanted to do with my life. I had to find another way to live with so much pain. My awakening began in the year 2001 when the elderly man I was taking care of became bedridden. He slept a lot, and during that time I thought a lot. I searched for answers on the internet, and although I found no specific method other than pain medications, I started to realize that when I focused my attention on something else, my pain level was not as bad.

At this point I must direct all of my gratitude to the VA, because that is where I learned the secret to living a happy life in spite of the intense physical and emotional pain I had endured for most of my life... After my very dear friend passed away, (the elderly man I cared for in his home for 13 years) I was accepted into the six week, inpatient pain clinic at the VA in Tampa, Florida. The first thing I learned was the benefits of stretching my limbs and muscles at the beginning of each day, and I was trained, in a warm Olympic sized pool, how to eliminate my body pain by exercising.
The biggest secret to reducing my pain level came as a complete shock to me, and it can be summed up in one word – focus. The idea is that the more a person focuses on the pain, the more the pain intensifies. So, I learned to focus on other things instead. I was given projects to complete, such as Intricate paintings by numbers, creating a fairy sitting on a tree truck next to some mushrooms from the plaster mold on up, and then taught the slow process of dry painting my creation, These were just a couple of the assignments I was given to distract my mind from the pain and learn to focus on something else. I was also given counseling for the mental anguish of physical pain. A positive focus also helps me to dig myself out of that hole, as well.

I know a lot of you out there suffer from intense physical pain. I highly recommend you talk to your doctor about the pain clinic near you. For me, stretching every morning and an intricate hobby works to redirect my focus from my pain to something more positive. As I was saying earlier, the year I spent taking the treatments for my hepatitis C was one of the happiest years of my life, in spite of the added side effects. I went into the pain clinic in November of 2001, and six weeks later I felt like a new person. In January 2002, I started on those awful treatments, but already had my focus in mind. It was that same month that I began my four-year collegiate career, and found that the excitement and my unquenchable thirst for knowledge made all of my pain nearly go away.

My overall objective was to learn how to endure my pain by other means than drugs. Mission accomplished! Focus did not take my pain completely away, but it transformed it into a tolerable level. The day I graduated from the pain clinic I was hit head on by a truck on my way home. I was lucky in that I only sustained further injury to one of the discs in my neck. I had to be pulled out of my car from the passenger side because the engine was practically in my lap. It hurt like the dickens, but do you know what I did? I focused on the irony and laughed all the way to the hospital.

Granted, my total knee replacement last year was no picnic, but it’s as good as new now. I thought I would throw in a little more irony here because it is a brand new knee when doctors replace the old one. Although I can no longer work, play volleyball, or go dancing with my friends, I can still walk, go hiking, and take a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I think positive now, instead of negative. I bought a little slice of heaven in the Smoky Mountains and have ½ an acre of land that I love to work in, and have found a passion in writing. These are what I focus on now and, as a result I live a peaceful and happy life, with minimal pain.