People should never, ever say to me, “well, it can’t get worse, can it?”
My doctor seems to think that I just need to be weened off my pain meds, because it’s not a life for a 32 y/o. Well, yes, but neither is one of chronic pain. And as she’s telling me my left arm has always been the problem (no, I corrected her and she got even more flustered), she tells me she’s going to wean me off the pain killers, because I’m an addict.
Yes. I have a diagnosed chronic and degenerative pain condition that very rarely goes into remission and has no known cure, and her response is to tell me I’m an addict.
It goes rather without saying that I will be shopping for a new doctor immediately.
(She also tried to tell me a bunch of things, from posture to writing and typing properly, and I went through the fact that I have a wrist brace to wear when I write, I use gel pens because I don’t need to press hard on them, that I don’t even have a callous or indentation on my fingers from holding a pen anymore. She told me I’ll just have to start dictating my work if I can’t type, and I asked her if she was going to pay for it, since it costs an arm and a leg to have someone do your typing for you. She finally broke down and acknowledged I apparently have been proactive about everything I can, but still. Yes, I am dependent on my pain medication to not be curled up in bed in wracking pain. This does not make me an addict, this makes me someone suffering from chronic fucking pain!)
Excellent, this is just what you needed.
One of the reasons I am grateful for our friendship is the constant reminder that the work I’m involved in implicates real human beings who are my intimates and who suffer at the hands of those socially positioned to help them.
Addiction, pain, opiates . . . at least 150 years of history is what you’re dealing with, there, K . . .