I have given birth to three children. I had two miscarriages. I think that qualifies a little bit for knowing about pain, both physical and emotional. Still, the kind of pain that Richard has endured with no pain killers or minimal pain killers is kind of beyond my level of understanding. He was awake at the scene of the accident, and was talking to EMTs. He has had almost every bone in his body broken all at the same time. More than one of them were broken through the skin and exposed to the winter air. Interestingly, he has no memory of this time. Perhaps that is for his protection.
He was non-weight bearing for several months on legs that had so many breaks, I don't even know where to start counting them all. Almost every rib was broken. I know that broken ribs are very painful, but to have them all broken, and broken to the point that they injured internal organs? Well, you get the picture. On top of that, to have an infection in an ankle that they cut open and squeeze and swab! He was swollen to the point of compartment syndrome in his head and arm. He went blind from the swelling in his skull. Is your skin crawling yet?
Right after Richard left ICU, he would ask that his meds be given farther part that was prescribed. He was actualy reprimanded by the doctor because he would wait too long to take something and then had to play catch up on the pain. However, once in this unit, when he asked for something for pain (which was pretty rare), the nurse told him that he needed to "get used to it." I was appalled by that. With all of his injuries, he had orders for pain killers, and yet she was cold enough to say, "Get used to it" instead of giving him the meds that he had orders to receive. There were also many times that he was told that he was slowing his healing because he was refusing pain meds. There were many mixed messages.
As time went on, Richard did have prescriptions for a lot of pain medication. Still he knew that being addicted to pain meds was a problem faced by many that had similar, and even less painful issues. Instead of choosing to continue to take them, he weaned himself off of them.
When we would go out in public, knowing that he was in pain already, I would guard his body with mine so that no one would inadvertantly hit him, causing more pain. The threat of this was worse than you might have thought, especially in crowded places.
When Richard takes pain medication now, I know that it is serious pain. I think his pain tolerance has increased because of this situation. He doesn't take medication for constant pain. He is always in pain, but he would rather go without, than to be addicted. Being addicted to pain medication is a problem in this country, but thankfully, it is a problem that we don't deal with.
We met a woman that works at a de-tox clinic and she tells terrible stories about people who became addicted when they had minor pain, and the addiction caused more problems than the original pain. One she told us about even went to street heroin after the doctors cut her off of getting more prescription medication.
I am not about to tell someone that they are not in enough pain to have pain meds. Pain is subjective, and you can't really tell how much pain someone else is in. Take what you need to take, but don't take more than you need to take, and get off of it as quickly as you are able, or look for non-addictive alternatives. It's not worth the risk.
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