Mark H. Ryan's Pain Journal

Today started like any other day. Woke up feeling sick with a head and body ache. Got meds on board and felt about the same. I was prescribed neurotin and since I started it, the shakes in my body have lessened dramatically. Today, tremors showed themselves mostly in my fingers and legs. I had ibuprofen and excederine, as well as Methocarbomol to try and stop the shakes. I also took, for the first time, a SECOND dose of Neurontin. I had so many muscle spasms that by the time my body stopped moving, my pain was very noticeable. If I get a dosage raise... There is only so much you can be prescribed. What do I do if I am already at the max? Too much will start hallucinations. That is all I need. I already see spots that aren't there...

I see this Blogger application on my phone, day after day I swipe past it and wonder if the next post could somehow alter my course in life. Maybe a bout of clarity that wasn't present before would make itself available to me and then I could explain in a better detail what my body really feels and acts like. I waste a ton of time trying to suppress my anger, but a lot still shows itself. I am far from being a violent man but I can see how some outside influences can dictate a persons actions. Sometimes I feel myself slipping away and it takes more and more to pull me back. I actually daydream of being in a horrible accident and not able to feel anything from the neck down. Wow, that is the first time I thought that out loud. That was something that not even my family knew... until just now. Of course I then realize that hugging the ones I loved would be impossible. Holding my wife. Teaching my kids... All of that would be gone. I get mad at myself a lot when I start wondering ab...

The dust has began to settle. My family has fortunately found a home and the unpacking is almost done. New shelves for our old nick-nacks are starting to be wiped down and ready for display. The living room is getting pulled together to hopefully hold a lot of family and friends conversations, and hopefully a few laughs.      We lost our home, and many items we had to leave behind... but we somehow gained something that we never knew we were lacking... and for the life of me I can't place what IT is. This house feels different somehow. Like its a starting block for the steps I somehow missed before. Perhaps this feeling will perpetuate to my world of aches and pain and give me the overall calm my body is looking for.

I am about to loose it. Called Wells Fargo a few minutes ago because we faxed a letter asking for an extention to our eviction that is set for the 27th of December. They NOW tell us they don't do that even though a rep told me to fax it in. Well... so that means that all our crap has to be out by that day. Family of four. Merry Flipping Christmas, Ryan Family! It keeps piling up and piling up. I really wished that people research before they give information that could effect people like this. I have to work from 2pm to 10:30pm. When I get home we put our boys in bed. The same little boys that I haven't been able to see very much due to our schedule. That leaves VERY little time to do anything else... mixed with the fact that we have nowhere to go puts a little more strain on everyone. We haven't told the kids and we aren't going to. They don't need to worry. They need to be kids. All they DO know is that we are moving... just don't know when or where. We might...

Today I go back to work. I think it will feel good. Back to the place I worked at for 7 1/2 years. I have heard that a lot of the people I worked with have since then moved on... So that is weighing a little heavily on me. I have met so many awesome people thru the years there, I am sure I will meet many more. The actual work itself I am ok with. Its going to be a good thing to get back to something I already know. This past year has been filled with uncertainty and chaos. That is the reason I am going back. Ever since I left Convergys, it seems that everything started going downhill. I am simply going back to the place where things made the most sense. Silly? Maybe. But I have to go with my gut on this one. If not for me, for my family. Its time to provide. Its time to build up what we have lost, and become a stronger family then we were before.

Pain found me again this morning.  Poking me with its silver blades, I groaned and twisted my body every way imaginable to somehow dodge his attacks but... was unsuccessful each time. He has found a way to enter my dreams now, therefore no or very little rest is obtainable. Dreams were my only resistance. To leap off a cliff and before plummeting to certain death, arms are spread and I pull up at the very last second and the only thing that would touch the jagged rock below is the wind dancing with small particles of dust where I would have landed. I am almost afraid to jump anymore in my dreams. The real world would surely find me and make me pay for trying to hide from it. I need an escape route, just to bypass his attacks... even if its just for a few minutes. Everywhere I run, he is already there. Every new place I find, he sits and is alreafy waiting for me. He is everywhere I go before I get there. He is... me. I can't separate him, he is too entwined within me. He almost...

When I started this pain journal I was expecting to put down all of the physical pain and record what started spasming and what I was doing when the onset occurred. Give it to the doctor and boom, done. Instant duagnosis. Sadly it has taken a little detour. I never took in to account the emotional pain that it puts on me, my friends, and most of all... my family. This last year has been the hardest of my life. My illness has gotten progressively worse which effects all of us. There have been so many doctors in the past 10 years. So many meds that did nothing but maybe mask the pain for a few minutes, gave me side effect after side effect... and then subside. My last doctors appointment at the end of November was perhaps the most eye opening that I have had. No news I hadn't already heard but I was getting the paperwork that the doctor gave me and there was a field that said diagnosis/other - it showed the words, Muscular Dystrophy.          ...