May, 2014

As I have mentioned 2014 has not been off to the greatest start and honestly I feel like I have spent most of my time passed back and forth between my doctors with one saying the other was the problem. The pelvic specialist thought that my Celiac was the problem. My GI thought that scar tissue was the problem. My pain specialist just thinks I am falling apart. Needless to say I have struggled staying positive and often wondered if I was just a lost cause and if chronic pain would continue to define my days.

Last week I had an appointment with my primary doctor so we could just lay everything out on the table and come up with a plan. We were able to look at all of the test results and procedure results along with my history. She has been my doctor from the beginning so after almost 11 years, she and I had quite a bit of history. I know that God had designed for our paths to meet as He knew the type of support I would need for my journey. As a scared college kid, I sat in the office of the new doctor who had just come to town. Coincidence? I think not. Within three months of my initial exam, I was diagnosed and began treatment for endometriosis (some women have to suffer for years before nailing down the diagnosis). In all of the time since then she has never once made me feel like I was crazy. Never once has she doubted or brushed off my experience. Never once has she made me feel like I was just a number. Over the last 11 years, she has laughed with me and cried with me so when I felt like I was at the end of my nope, I knew that she could help pull me back in.

So last Thursday she and I along with my husband (and the NP student who just happened to be shadowing my doctor), we laid everything out. Surgery was definitely not an possibility because I am so high risk because of my history of adhesions and obstructions. At this point surgery would only be an option in an emergency (like another total bowel obstruction). I felt relieved (as I still have nightmares about my last surgery) and overwhelmed (as I wasn’t sure what other options we had).

We decided that the next step should be getting a second opinion from a pain specialist. If you have read my blog for awhile, you may have noticed that I am not too fond of my current pain specialist (and I happened to find out that the other doctors in the area aren’t fond of him either) but being in a small town and knowing all of the restrictions involved in seeing a pain specialist, I was too worried that attempting to find a new one would cause problems (such as looking like I was shopping for prescriptions).

With the assurance of my doctor, we knew that the time had come to get a second option. My current specialist only wants to treat the pain with medication and honestly at this point, we aren’t sure if they are helping or hurting so it is time to explore new options (such as a nerve stimulator).

While it may not look like we made great strides in that appointment, I feel very positive about the direction we are taking and more confident that I will not have to continue to live with this amount of pain indefinitely. I feel like there is hope that I regain some type of normal for my life. Pain will no longer define my days and that feels awesome.