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Chronic Pain members - Welcome, please introduce yourself
Chronic Pain | Last Active: 16 hours ago | Replies (6906)Comment receiving replies
Hello @dabbs, welcome. It's nice to have you join us on Connect. Unfortunately, the usual "pain" is what brings us all here. I hope you receive support and learn from others experiences while receiving and sharing encouragement.
So sorry things turned out in an unfortunate way for you after what sounds like some bad luck. How sad to walk away from a career you loved. The term you use, "medically retired" is a good way to put it. I might steal that from you. I always hate saying I'm disabled when people ask why I have not been at my job of 27 years anymore.
Kudos to you for not going down the opioid path. Grin and bear it, huh? That must be tough some days. I give you a lot of credit. My pain journey went down some embarrassing paths. Panic and denial never helped my quest to find a fix or a cure to which there was none.
Taking it day by day is the best way to see it. Sometimes you have to get through a moment, an hour or just the next 5 minutes. Please know that while quality of life may change, it does not have to define who you are. My mindset nowadays is more about what I CAN do not what I can't. It took me a while to get there and I still work at it, but hope goes a long way. How about you? What ways do you find joy? Do you have hobbies or any new interests that you can do?
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Rachel, Thank You for your reply. Like you, I hated the word “disabled”. I’ve always been hard headed lol. After spending 32 years taking care of others in their best and worst moments we’re all I knew. I know there are others here that are medically trained and unfortunately we know what the usual outcomes can become. The first year after being “ retired “ I honestly went through a year of a deep depression and learned how bad and deep depression can become. Truthfully there were moments I considered doing the worst . One day I finally “woke up” and pursued a new purpose in life. I joined a forum ( which I won’t list ) and started helping others. After the forum was bought out I became involved helping older neighbors and trying to live a normal life. I went out and bought a boat ( I swore I would never buy another one prior to selling my old boat ) and try and get back into fishing. That didn’t last long as I tore all the meniscus in both knees lol. That’s one way to forget about neck pain for a bit is when you tear your knees up lol. So the boat was sold. As I looked through this site, I noticed there were other Health care professionals on this site as well. It’s actually a blessing and a curse as most of us are the worst patients lol. I was medically retired in 2016 and have learned more about all the road blocks and walls that “ patients” have to go through just to get help. Definitely a eye opener. Again Thank you for your reply ! I’ll stop my rambling now and make a pot of coffee lol. What I would give for a full night of sleep!……David