Teens in Chronic Pain

I watched House this week and it impacted me more than I thought it would. This week’s patient attempted to commit suicide due to intense chronic pain, which is what got him into the hospital and Dr. House treating him.

Most of all, the episode scared me.

The shots of Dr. House having a bad pain day - popping more Vicodin than normal, rubbing his leg in a certain manner, etc. It was eerily all too familiar.

Chronic pain can be exhausting. Whereas acute pain is intense and awful, you know it’s short lived. It may last a month or a little long after surgery, a couple days, few minutes, or even seconds. Chronic pain just keeps coming. A new wave hits every day and sometimes it makes you gasp for air.

You have a good week or two, maybe a good month, and you start to think that you’re getting better. And then that bad pain day comes and packs a punch that leaves you immobilized. You cry. You question. You hurt.  You wonder how much longer you can take all of this.

Like the patient in the episode, people doubt your sanity. They say the pain is all psychological. No one can hurt that much. You’re just faking it to get your hands on the narcotics. You’re doing it for the attention.

No, I’m not. I don’t have handicap parking because I’m lazy and have a doctor that could sign for one. I have permanent handicap parking at the age of 21 because I hurt. Every day. Every minute of every waking hour. I wake up in the morning and it throbs. Sometimes I have to ice my knee after I get out of the shower. I may smile and laugh. I do enjoy life in spite of the pain. But that doesn’t mean the pain isn’t there. That doesn’t mean my life is perfect or it only hurts when you see it. You only see it when the pain gets too bad where I can’t hide it.

You crack jokes about my use of narcotics to quell the pain. You probably secretly judge me for taking it so much. While I smile and laugh at your joke, I cringe inwardly. I don’t want to take narcotics. The stronger you take, the more it messes with your system. The stigma sucks. But it’s the only thing that I can rely on to help lower the pain. Ice and medication are the only things that take the edge of the pain. I have to numb it. But it doesn’t take it away. I’m so tolerant to the medicine now that it simply makes the pain less intense.

I shouldn’t complain - my life is wonderful and others have pain and health conditions much worse. But House just reminded me how fragile life is and I eerily saw myself in his actions and that, in and of itself, is a bit scary.

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