You Don't Acknowledge Your Pain

Pain is good. It tells us that something is wrong with our physical being and therefore should do something about it. Without pain to tell us that we have a physical problem we would not survive very long.
Six weeks ago I woke up in the middle of the night with excruciating back pain, severe enough to wake up my wife to have her take me to the emergency room. They took an X-ray from the front and sent me home with a prescription for pain. The pills did very little and the next evening the pain came back worse than the night before. So back to the emergency room. This time they took an ultra-sound when the Abdominal Aorta Anerism (Triple A) was discovered. Needless to say I underwent emergency surgery that same night and spent the next 14 days in the hospital. If I had ignored the pain and just taken more pills, and it had burst, I probably wouldn't be Posting now.

I'm not talking about bumping your elbow and saying ouch. You know what caused that pain and it usually goes away in a short period of time. Even in such a minor situation if the pain greatly increases, don't ignore it.
Triple A's are, many times, discovered while attempting to get medical treatment for another problem. Mine was for back pain and my brother went in, six years ago, for gall stones. As this problem is hereditary and a parent or sibling has had the operation you may want to advise your doctor of this fact. It does not mean you will have it. I have 10 brothers and sisters and only two of us were "lucky" enough to get it. Paranoia is bad, being concerned for our well-being is good.

1 comments:

Mark said...

This is a subject that is near and dear to me in more ways then one. On a personal level, the author is my dad and I was in a remote area of Alaska without internet or cell coverage, and didn't hear about the surgery until he was in recovery. Words can't express how thankful I am that you insisted on more tests.
On an individual level, unless directly administed by a doctor, I do not take pain medication. While drugged, one cannot monitor ones recovery from an injury, and it is nearly impossible to acknowledge that an injury has accured. I can't count the number of times I am offered ibuprofen at work after commenting about a headache. The fact is I was staring at a computer screen for hours and my body is telling me to get up and move around! Treating the syptom of a problem doesn't resolve the problem. Acknowledging the pain is the only way to get healthy and stay healthy.
I am very grateful that your pain medication didn't work on your symptoms, you acknowledged the pain, and that I could come back to civilization to hear that you went through a surgery that went well, as opposed to the alternate news.

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