The New Path

I have been absent for a while due to multiple reasons. If anything, these reasons are a door opening to another pathway. If anything, this is a major turn on my life’s journey, no matter how you look at it.

First off, my chronic pain has completely changed my life. At the age of 26, I was working as a paralegal in one of the best employment law firm’s in Michigan. The job was extremely stressful for multiple reasons. I was treated like I was a child because I was young and also looked very young. I guess I was immature too. Only two people would even talk to me, the other youngest members of the firm, we were affectionately referred to as "the Romper Room" Department. It was my first "real"career employment. One I really enjoyed. We were attorneys for the Plaintiffs and we took on enormous and powerful companies. These cases were regarding sexual harassment, racial and age discrimination and disability discrimination. It was wonderful to feel that I was giving my piece of good to the world, it is one of my biggest life goals. Anyway... At the end of 2002, the law firm I worked for decided to move offices. Although I told the office manager I had trouble lifting due to a sport’s injury to my back, just picking up my pencils and paper and putting my desk supplies into boxes caused me to have what I now know as a "flare-up." I had constant muscle pain coming from one spot in my mid-back on the right side with muscle pain and spasms radiating down and around my right side, so tight I couldn’t sit up. The only thing I could do was lay on my back with a heating pad and take pain medication. This is how I spent Christmas that year and my mom had to do my Christmas shopping for me and make all my meals. We were all scared but a trip to the ER told us everything was ok and I would get better. That was the beginning and I have a lot more to say about it, and I will... soon.

The turn in my path has come because at this time, seven years later, due to the facts that I cannot support myself and that I have to depend on others for most of my activities of daily living: cooking, laundry, grocery shopping and cleaning, I had to move back in with my parents. I have the special gift of having parents to take care of me. But they live in Tennessee and I was living in Michigan. I had to move from the suburbs of Detroit, where I had spent 25 years of my life, where my best friends lived, where I could go to bars and had a social life once in a while, to a tiny town in Tennessee, dry county, small population, absolutely beautiful place, but I have no idea how to make a life here. I can’t clean my own room, which is what I now live in, mostly laying flat on my bed, writing cover letters, editing my resume and trying desperately to find a job. Although I really don’t know how much I can do, I have still applied for full-time, part-time (which is most likely the most feasible) even contract assignments, and I have heard nothing. Nevertheless, I have chosen to try to make a life here in this amazing place, in the valley of the Smokey Mountains on the Tennessee River...and I intend to tell you guys all about it, chronic pain and all...

Here’s to you and me, pain free,
MZ

I'm Back!!!

Hi everyone! Long story (which I'm writing about right now) but I have been missing from the internet world for close to six months, and I must say I have missed it. There's so much info out there and people have so much to say that I can't imagine life without it...although I just lived it and it was a pain in the a**!!!

I'm ready to start doing posts more often, working on one right now so please check back. I have learned so much in the past six months.

Here's to you and me, pain free,

MZ

Newbie

I am so new to this whole process, so I'll do what I do best and just write, off the cuff, no editing, writing. I have always had a lot to say on my own without even approaching all of the rest of the "issues," but now that I actually have "issues" I feel this overwhelming urge to share my experiences. I will not for one moment say that I can speak for another person, unless they allow me to directly quote them of course. The people I want to help the most are those that are, in any way, trying to make sense out of suffering, or knowing someone who suffers from, chronic pain and/or fatigue. I know these ailments are just starting to be more widely acknowledged problems but so many people have already suffered for so long, if not their whole lives, that I feel like talking about it now will help me feel like I'm at least trying to help in some way. I'm too damn old for med school, which is the only other way I know to be of assistance.

I plan to start off writing my blog about what brought me to this specific point, of actually wanting to write about the most depressing topic in the world, daily. It is my hope that I could provide others an oasis where they can go, and maybe not feel the pain for every second they are awake. The only way I know how to do this is by talking about my own pain experiences (amongst other experiences). At least I got the idea of that video journal out of my head. My friends and family would be really bored with their seemed obligation to watch/read. If it was a video journal, it would be me laying in bed, watching t.v., reading, writing, one dog on the bed, then, the big excitement, one dog jumps off the bed, and another one jumps on! Reading it all just seems to make me feel like I will be able to make it seem a little more exciting than paint drying. I have heard that humor is one of the best coping mechanisms, well I'm filled up to the brim with it. Which brings me to my first tip of the day:

Coffee, if you enjoy it black, with regular cream and sugar, with the special creams you can buy by CoffeeMate at the store, named Gingerbread Garden or Hazelnut Heaven, or if you want to go all out and spend that $20 at a specialty coffee shop, just love it, smell it, love it, make sure it's filled with caffeine, even if you have to leave that extra day to get over the adjustments that a person with chronic pain and fatigue needs for one cup of coffee, just treat yourself. If you don't enjoy coffee this much, just exchange it for something you do.

Here's to you and me, pain free

MZ