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iamjjmmma · 5 years

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On Caring for Someone with Chronic Pain

I originally intended this as inspiration for those who are currently writing about this dilemma, and I wanted to give a few tips.

I care for someone with CRPS, which stands for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. It’s one of the most painful conditions known to man, and those who suffer from it have a constant pain rate of eight out of a possible ten. Ten will render someone unconscious. Sometimes, I spend entire days with them, and the experience is something like this:

Each day starts with them waking up as if startled by some sort of all-encompassing fear. But you know it’s just the pain.

They’ll walk twenty feet, and then collapse, and then tell you they’re tired. But you know it’s just the pain.

You’ll do their chores for them, and they’ll tell you not to try, they’ll tell you it’s too much effort, even though you keep on doing it anyway. You think it’s depression. But you know it’s just the pain.

On bad days, on the days where the medications just don’t work, on days where they can’t take any more medicine because they’ll end up vomiting and passing out on the couch, it’s pure hell. It’s a horror movie, but a horror movie even the producers are too terrified to make. Writhing, kicking, constant crying. Screaming, screaming. And meanwhile, you scream, knowing there’s nothing you can do.

And the pain you suffer?

It’s even worse.

It’s an emotional pain, yes, but an emotional pain that becomes something else. Something that becomes its own monster.

Caring for someone with chronic pain will push you over the edge. It will make every moment last a day. It will turn you upside down, inside out, rip you to shreds, and then toss you out again. It will drive your sanity over the absolute edge, knowing there’s nothing you can do. Nothing except stand there and watch them, and pray, and pray, and prayandprayandpray. You can’t even hold their hand or hug them. That’ll only make the pain worse, if that’s possible. It’s gut-wrenching, and on some occasions, I’ve even ended the day with vomiting in their toilet because of the sheer stress.

But it will change you.

It will change you, and it will change you beyond belief. It will change your entire aspect on life. All of the little pains you suffer, all of the toe-stubs, stomach bugs, and splinters, will be nothing to you. All of a sudden, everything everyone around you complains about descends to nil. And it will isolate you. Because you can’t complain, you can’t socialize as much. So you’re a little isolated, but you feel fine with it.

Because you know the hell other people are going through.

Because you’ve seen it.

Because you’ve felt it.

Because you’ve embraced it.

That is what it’s like to care for someone in chronic pain.

#chronic pain #hope you know now #camila cuevas

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