Lori! WTF! - Regulars Can Delete

Ah, the heck with it - I'm so (too) much of an open book here I may as well
just repost it all in condensed form - everyone here has heard it in bits
and pieces and can just ignore it please (and, regulars, since I promised I
wouldn't bring this up here any more, I apologize, and please hit delete
now)...

In a nutshell...

Years ago I shattered my right wrist (Ben "belly-bumped" me during an
argument when I "got in his face" and sent me flying across the garage to
land on my right hand). Over the years it never did heal correctly, the
pain just traveled up the arm to the neck and we thought I might injured a
disk in my neck, so they did an anterior discectomy with fusion at C6-C7.
After that the pain kept getting worse and worse until it became unbearable.
I went to a Pain Clinic and was FINALLY diagnosed with Regional Sympathetic
Dystrophy (RSD) - also known as Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). RSD
is a degenerative, ultimately fatal disease - though most people with RSD
die from suicide because of the relentless, ever present pain, and crippling
because it causes the bones and muscles to atrophy, disfigure and deform -
these are pictures of RSD patients: http://www.rsdrx.com/rsdphoto.htm). It
has all kinds of bad symptoms, but I won't list them here - if you're really
curious you can read about it at http://www.rsdhope.org/.

RSD/CRPS/Causalgia registers on the McGill pain index at a 42:
http://www.rsdhope.org/ShowPage.asp?page_id=116. Aside from all that, my
right shoulder was completely messed up, so I had to have massive bone
reconstruction surgery - and every surgery is considered an injury by the
RSD and it finds a new home to settle in on. During all this I had used up
all my PTO at work, and because of the merger my company had there was *WAY*
more work than usual. So I had to keep working no matter what pain I was in
(Ben's been out of work for 2 years now. I was taking more and stronger
narcotics (100mcg Fentanyl (equivalent to morphine), 30mg Oxicodone,
Tramadol, Klonopin, Ambien (so I could sleep at all, etc.), OTC pain
killers. Now they have me on straight Morphine and Oxycodine and an
antiimflamatory. Nothing works.

I noticed that I kept getting weaker and weaker - unable to walk just a few
steps without dropping to the floor so I could catch my breath. That was
symptomatic of RSD and the massive amount of narcotics I was taking, but
because of the severity of it I just could not, physically, take anymore -
my body had no more strength with which to fight the illness or even keep me
upright. One day I came home from work and took 40 Ambiens and 50 morphine
tablets (but, believe it or not, it was not my intention to just die - it
was me screaming as loud as I could, directly AT Ben, my doctors, and the
whole world asking, no begging for help. I told Ben almost immediately
after I took the pills - and I even kept enough "left overs" to get me
through the month until I could get the prescriptions the next month.
Still, I can't make excuses, with all that I took it could have gone either
way and even more possibly the *wrong* way (whether for me or anyone else I
still don't know, and I have to admit that those feelings are still there
somewhere).

They checked me into the hospital on a "24 hour suicide hold". [I had a
very nice bible-thumping Nigerian as my watcher, and he could not leave me
alone long enough to use the bathroom within my room]. They kept me there
for four days and they would not give *any* medication (not even a sleeping
pill so I could get some rest - I still can't believe they stopped all of my
medication, *COLD TURKEY*! - given the nature of some of those drugs, not to
mention the *combinations* of those drugs, they could have *KILLED* me... it
was 98 hours of conscious, wide-awake hell (or the purest form of hell we
could have here on earth).

After the four days there they transported me to a psychiatric hospital (don't
let them tell you there are no more "snake pits" in the world. Describing
this place would take a novel but, believe me, they hire some severely
****ed up sadists who work at that place. I had to stay there at least 3
days (still no drugs or sleep aids, so it was another 72 hours of wide-awake
hell), even though it was a "voluntary" commitment (had I not agreed to self
commitment they would have put me in involuntarily and I would have been
there *much* longer than three days.

I got out in three days, but about 3 days later, still suffering from
withdrawals and just plain sick as a dog, I could not get out of bed and get
to the truck for blood tests (going and then coming back home from them the
day *before* was so exhausting I couldn't walk by myself and Ben wouldn't
carry me to my bed (at 90 pounds this would not be that much of a chore for
a 300 pound, very strong man) so I had to literally *crawl* on hands and
knees across the driveway, across the cement floor of the garage, through my
sitting room and into my bedroom and try to pull myself up to my very tall
bed (I almost just gave up and lay there next to it)). But the next day Ben
kept insisting that I could get up and walk around if I just tried (he even
had the nerve to quote Yoda from Star Wars, "there is no try there is only
do or not do"). By then I knew I was in serious trouble so, since he
refused to take me to the ER I wanted to call 911 and have them take me -
but when I tried to dial he snatched the phone out of my hands, then I tried
to get on the laptop to get in touch with some of my cyber friends to call
*for* me, but he snatched the laptop from my hands. I told him I wasn't
moving and I'd just wait until he went to sleep and call then and that there
was nothing he could do about it. He said (after knowing every detail of
what I went through in the snakepit (seriously, this is a horror story you
simply would not believe could happen in the twentieth, much less the
twentyfirst century)) that if I didn't do as he said he'd have me committed
again!!! That scared me so badly that all I could do was lie there and
whimper - trying not to cry too hard so he wouldn't hear me.

But after an hour of fighting with him which was making me more and more
weak he let me call my son and my son too one look at me and called the EMTs
to come out to bring me to the ER. I was so freaking weak that the had to
life me out of bed onto the stretcher. At the ER they took some blood tests
and admitted me again (without telling me why and not seeing a doctor). It
was 1:00AM and I still hadn't seen a doctor so I checked myself out AMA (the
nurse finally told me that my T(something) serums indicated damage to my
heart. But since I still hadn't seen a doctor I just wanted to go home and
see my own doctor whom I trusted, which I did. I told him the whole sordid
story and he took an EKG right there in the office then had me immediately
admitted to another hospital on an emergency basis. They did an
echocardiogram which showed massive damage to the muscles on the left side
of my heart, and because they weren't working properly it allowed blood to
pool inside my left ventricle which turned into a huge blood clot. They
said that I had to have had a massive heart attack sometime in the past
couple of months - but the pain from the RSD is so intense that I didn't
feel it (not even the different symptoms that are sometimes reported in
women as opposed to men when it happened.

Since then it's been a saga of fighting with my insurance company to get
short-term disability and going through Binder and Binder to get on SSD
because at the point it's hard for me to get out of bed to go to all the
doctor visits. My doctors have told me it would be pretty much impossible
for me to work again (if for nothing else because I can't get my weight to
even close to 100 pounds (at the height of 5' 5.5" that gives me a BMI of 15
when my absolute lowest should be 18).

Anyway, I think that's about it, probably there are huge holes in the story
that I just forgot about here (especially since this turned into a
mini-novel, and especially the medications I'm taking are not indusive to
thinking much less conversing ;). Feel free to ask whatever questions you
might have if I haven't made something clear enough.

--
Hugs,

CatNipped
See all our masters at: http://www.PossiblePlaces.com/CatNipped

See the RPCA FAQ site, by Mark Edwards, at:
http://www.professional-geek.com/rpcablog/

"Nomen Nescio" wrote in message
...
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

From: "CatNipped"

I didn't get any emails from you.

--
Hugs,

CatNipped

Sent it last night.
The isn't munged, right?

Our internet has been kinda flaky the past 24 hrs. Slow e-mail, service
dropouts, and other odd stuff.

I sent my wife a couple of links this morning. It took 8 hrs for the
e-mail
to get to her. I finally just printed them out and handed them to her in
her office (a distance of about 25 ft from my computer).
The joys of modern technology.

If it doesn't show up soon, I'll resend it.

Probably the holiday shopping traffic.

Bah, f#@kin', humbug!




-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: N/A

iQCVAwUBTPNlEZMoscYxZNI5AQGNJgP+K8ppJeM/F9cEPne8U5U6eO7n+DPyQFTe
1YNJqkMELnrYUjvaFrz2VGvO2y+TvuBSuewl328y6RLPdefE+d O24jOUOityzJBS
ChFDZ5S2dBjPFCeHYfRmjmqb+1C/7ng7LbRZ7yEZnCeiutOFxFWVhDzjMrZV+1Od
Nr89RuRV3zA=
=3JR/
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

My question if I were allowed one is why is Ben still with you. I would
think you would be terrified to have him in the same house and so would you
son. For your sake be afraid I mean.
"CatNipped" wrote in message
...
Ah, the heck with it - I'm so (too) much of an open book here I may as
well just repost it all in condensed form - everyone here has heard it in
bits and pieces and can just ignore it please (and, regulars, since I
promised I wouldn't bring this up here any more, I apologize, and please
hit delete now)...

In a nutshell...

Years ago I shattered my right wrist (Ben "belly-bumped" me during an
argument when I "got in his face" and sent me flying across the garage to
land on my right hand). Over the years it never did heal correctly, the
pain just traveled up the arm to the neck and we thought I might injured a
disk in my neck, so they did an anterior discectomy with fusion at C6-C7.
After that the pain kept getting worse and worse until it became
unbearable. I went to a Pain Clinic and was FINALLY diagnosed with
Regional Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) - also known as Chronic Regional Pain
Syndrome (CRPS). RSD is a degenerative, ultimately fatal disease - though
most people with RSD die from suicide because of the relentless, ever
present pain, and crippling because it causes the bones and muscles to
atrophy, disfigure and deform - these are pictures of RSD patients:
http://www.rsdrx.com/rsdphoto.htm). It has all kinds of bad symptoms, but
I won't list them here - if you're really curious you can read about it at
http://www.rsdhope.org/.

RSD/CRPS/Causalgia registers on the McGill pain index at a 42:
http://www.rsdhope.org/ShowPage.asp?page_id=116. Aside from all that, my
right shoulder was completely messed up, so I had to have massive bone
reconstruction surgery - and every surgery is considered an injury by the
RSD and it finds a new home to settle in on. During all this I had used
up all my PTO at work, and because of the merger my company had there was
*WAY* more work than usual. So I had to keep working no matter what pain
I was in (Ben's been out of work for 2 years now. I was taking more and
stronger narcotics (100mcg Fentanyl (equivalent to morphine), 30mg
Oxicodone, Tramadol, Klonopin, Ambien (so I could sleep at all, etc.), OTC
pain killers. Now they have me on straight Morphine and Oxycodine and an
antiimflamatory. Nothing works.

I noticed that I kept getting weaker and weaker - unable to walk just a
few steps without dropping to the floor so I could catch my breath. That
was symptomatic of RSD and the massive amount of narcotics I was taking,
but because of the severity of it I just could not, physically, take
anymore - my body had no more strength with which to fight the illness or
even keep me upright. One day I came home from work and took 40 Ambiens
and 50 morphine tablets (but, believe it or not, it was not my intention
to just die - it was me screaming as loud as I could, directly AT Ben, my
doctors, and the whole world asking, no begging for help. I told Ben
almost immediately after I took the pills - and I even kept enough "left
overs" to get me through the month until I could get the prescriptions the
next month. Still, I can't make excuses, with all that I took it could
have gone either way and even more possibly the *wrong* way (whether for
me or anyone else I still don't know, and I have to admit that those
feelings are still there somewhere).

They checked me into the hospital on a "24 hour suicide hold". [I had a
very nice bible-thumping Nigerian as my watcher, and he could not leave me
alone long enough to use the bathroom within my room]. They kept me there
for four days and they would not give *any* medication (not even a
sleeping pill so I could get some rest - I still can't believe they
stopped all of my medication, *COLD TURKEY*! - given the nature of some of
those drugs, not to mention the *combinations* of those drugs, they could
have *KILLED* me... it was 98 hours of conscious, wide-awake hell (or the
purest form of hell we could have here on earth).

After the four days there they transported me to a psychiatric hospital
(don't let them tell you there are no more "snake pits" in the world.
Describing this place would take a novel but, believe me, they hire some
severely ****ed up sadists who work at that place. I had to stay there at
least 3 days (still no drugs or sleep aids, so it was another 72 hours of
wide-awake hell), even though it was a "voluntary" commitment (had I not
agreed to self commitment they would have put me in involuntarily and I
would have been there *much* longer than three days.

I got out in three days, but about 3 days later, still suffering from
withdrawals and just plain sick as a dog, I could not get out of bed and
get to the truck for blood tests (going and then coming back home from
them the day *before* was so exhausting I couldn't walk by myself and Ben
wouldn't carry me to my bed (at 90 pounds this would not be that much of a
chore for a 300 pound, very strong man) so I had to literally *crawl* on
hands and knees across the driveway, across the cement floor of the
garage, through my sitting room and into my bedroom and try to pull myself
up to my very tall bed (I almost just gave up and lay there next to it)).
But the next day Ben kept insisting that I could get up and walk around if
I just tried (he even had the nerve to quote Yoda from Star Wars, "there
is no try there is only do or not do"). By then I knew I was in serious
trouble so, since he refused to take me to the ER I wanted to call 911 and
have them take me - but when I tried to dial he snatched the phone out of
my hands, then I tried to get on the laptop to get in touch with some of
my cyber friends to call *for* me, but he snatched the laptop from my
hands. I told him I wasn't moving and I'd just wait until he went to
sleep and call then and that there was nothing he could do about it. He
said (after knowing every detail of what I went through in the snakepit
(seriously, this is a horror story you simply would not believe could
happen in the twentieth, much less the twentyfirst century)) that if I
didn't do as he said he'd have me committed again!!! That scared me so
badly that all I could do was lie there and whimper - trying not to cry
too hard so he wouldn't hear me.

But after an hour of fighting with him which was making me more and more
weak he let me call my son and my son too one look at me and called the
EMTs to come out to bring me to the ER. I was so freaking weak that the
had to life me out of bed onto the stretcher. At the ER they took some
blood tests and admitted me again (without telling me why and not seeing a
doctor). It was 1:00AM and I still hadn't seen a doctor so I checked
myself out AMA (the nurse finally told me that my T(something) serums
indicated damage to my heart. But since I still hadn't seen a doctor I
just wanted to go home and see my own doctor whom I trusted, which I did.
I told him the whole sordid story and he took an EKG right there in the
office then had me immediately admitted to another hospital on an
emergency basis. They did an echocardiogram which showed massive damage
to the muscles on the left side of my heart, and because they weren't
working properly it allowed blood to pool inside my left ventricle which
turned into a huge blood clot. They said that I had to have had a massive
heart attack sometime in the past couple of months - but the pain from the
RSD is so intense that I didn't feel it (not even the different symptoms
that are sometimes reported in women as opposed to men when it happened.

Since then it's been a saga of fighting with my insurance company to get
short-term disability and going through Binder and Binder to get on SSD
because at the point it's hard for me to get out of bed to go to all the
doctor visits. My doctors have told me it would be pretty much impossible
for me to work again (if for nothing else because I can't get my weight to
even close to 100 pounds (at the height of 5' 5.5" that gives me a BMI of
15 when my absolute lowest should be 18).

Anyway, I think that's about it, probably there are huge holes in the
story that I just forgot about here (especially since this turned into a
mini-novel, and especially the medications I'm taking are not indusive to
thinking much less conversing ;). Feel free to ask whatever questions
you might have if I haven't made something clear enough.

--
Hugs,

CatNipped
See all our masters at: http://www.PossiblePlaces.com/CatNipped

See the RPCA FAQ site, by Mark Edwards, at:
http://www.professional-geek.com/rpcablog/

"Nomen Nescio" wrote in message
...
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

From: "CatNipped"

I didn't get any emails from you.

--
Hugs,

CatNipped

Sent it last night.
The isn't munged, right?

Our internet has been kinda flaky the past 24 hrs. Slow e-mail, service
dropouts, and other odd stuff.

I sent my wife a couple of links this morning. It took 8 hrs for the
e-mail
to get to her. I finally just printed them out and handed them to her in
her office (a distance of about 25 ft from my computer).
The joys of modern technology.

If it doesn't show up soon, I'll resend it.

Probably the holiday shopping traffic.

Bah, f#@kin', humbug!




-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: N/A

iQCVAwUBTPNlEZMoscYxZNI5AQGNJgP+K8ppJeM/F9cEPne8U5U6eO7n+DPyQFTe
1YNJqkMELnrYUjvaFrz2VGvO2y+TvuBSuewl328y6RLPdefE+d O24jOUOityzJBS
ChFDZ5S2dBjPFCeHYfRmjmqb+1C/7ng7LbRZ7yEZnCeiutOFxFWVhDzjMrZV+1Od
Nr89RuRV3zA=
=3JR/
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

What can I say - there *are* two sides of the story and we're *both* seeing
a psychiatrist (at first separately then later on together) - we've been
together for 25 years and, aside from the "belly bump" he's never touched me
in anger, and *believe me* he's been pushed beyond the limits of most men.
The taking away the phone incident, he says, was to get me to get up and
stop lying in bed giving up and wanting to die (this was *before* we knew
about the heart problem and I had scared the bejeezus out of him with the
suicide attempt - I came that close to dying) and afterwards he was as
twisted up as I was if not more.

I know all those things are what an enabler would say, but there's no way I
could convince anyone any other way.

--
Hugs,

CatNipped
See all our masters at: http://www.PossiblePlaces.com/CatNipped

See the RPCA FAQ site, by Mark Edwards, at:
http://www.professional-geek.com/rpcablog/

"Granby" wrote in message
...
My question if I were allowed one is why is Ben still with you. I would
think you would be terrified to have him in the same house and so would
you son. For your sake be afraid I mean.
"CatNipped" wrote in message
...
Ah, the heck with it - I'm so (too) much of an open book here I may as
well just repost it all in condensed form - everyone here has heard it in
bits and pieces and can just ignore it please (and, regulars, since I
promised I wouldn't bring this up here any more, I apologize, and please
hit delete now)...

In a nutshell...

Years ago I shattered my right wrist (Ben "belly-bumped" me during an
argument when I "got in his face" and sent me flying across the garage to
land on my right hand). Over the years it never did heal correctly, the
pain just traveled up the arm to the neck and we thought I might injured
a disk in my neck, so they did an anterior discectomy with fusion at
C6-C7. After that the pain kept getting worse and worse until it became
unbearable. I went to a Pain Clinic and was FINALLY diagnosed with
Regional Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) - also known as Chronic Regional
Pain Syndrome (CRPS). RSD is a degenerative, ultimately fatal disease -
though most people with RSD die from suicide because of the relentless,
ever present pain, and crippling because it causes the bones and muscles
to atrophy, disfigure and deform - these are pictures of RSD patients:
http://www.rsdrx.com/rsdphoto.htm). It has all kinds of bad symptoms,
but I won't list them here - if you're really curious you can read about
it at http://www.rsdhope.org/.

RSD/CRPS/Causalgia registers on the McGill pain index at a 42:
http://www.rsdhope.org/ShowPage.asp?page_id=116. Aside from all that, my
right shoulder was completely messed up, so I had to have massive bone
reconstruction surgery - and every surgery is considered an injury by the
RSD and it finds a new home to settle in on. During all this I had used
up all my PTO at work, and because of the merger my company had there was
*WAY* more work than usual. So I had to keep working no matter what pain
I was in (Ben's been out of work for 2 years now. I was taking more and
stronger narcotics (100mcg Fentanyl (equivalent to morphine), 30mg
Oxicodone, Tramadol, Klonopin, Ambien (so I could sleep at all, etc.),
OTC pain killers. Now they have me on straight Morphine and Oxycodine
and an antiimflamatory. Nothing works.

I noticed that I kept getting weaker and weaker - unable to walk just a
few steps without dropping to the floor so I could catch my breath. That
was symptomatic of RSD and the massive amount of narcotics I was taking,
but because of the severity of it I just could not, physically, take
anymore - my body had no more strength with which to fight the illness or
even keep me upright. One day I came home from work and took 40 Ambiens
and 50 morphine tablets (but, believe it or not, it was not my intention
to just die - it was me screaming as loud as I could, directly AT Ben, my
doctors, and the whole world asking, no begging for help. I told Ben
almost immediately after I took the pills - and I even kept enough "left
overs" to get me through the month until I could get the prescriptions
the next month. Still, I can't make excuses, with all that I took it
could have gone either way and even more possibly the *wrong* way
(whether for me or anyone else I still don't know, and I have to admit
that those feelings are still there somewhere).

They checked me into the hospital on a "24 hour suicide hold". [I had a
very nice bible-thumping Nigerian as my watcher, and he could not leave
me alone long enough to use the bathroom within my room]. They kept me
there for four days and they would not give *any* medication (not even a
sleeping pill so I could get some rest - I still can't believe they
stopped all of my medication, *COLD TURKEY*! - given the nature of some
of those drugs, not to mention the *combinations* of those drugs, they
could have *KILLED* me... it was 98 hours of conscious, wide-awake hell
(or the purest form of hell we could have here on earth).

After the four days there they transported me to a psychiatric hospital
(don't let them tell you there are no more "snake pits" in the world.
Describing this place would take a novel but, believe me, they hire some
severely ****ed up sadists who work at that place. I had to stay there
at least 3 days (still no drugs or sleep aids, so it was another 72 hours
of wide-awake hell), even though it was a "voluntary" commitment (had I
not agreed to self commitment they would have put me in involuntarily and
I would have been there *much* longer than three days.

I got out in three days, but about 3 days later, still suffering from
withdrawals and just plain sick as a dog, I could not get out of bed and
get to the truck for blood tests (going and then coming back home from
them the day *before* was so exhausting I couldn't walk by myself and Ben
wouldn't carry me to my bed (at 90 pounds this would not be that much of
a chore for a 300 pound, very strong man) so I had to literally *crawl*
on hands and knees across the driveway, across the cement floor of the
garage, through my sitting room and into my bedroom and try to pull
myself up to my very tall bed (I almost just gave up and lay there next
to it)). But the next day Ben kept insisting that I could get up and walk
around if I just tried (he even had the nerve to quote Yoda from Star
Wars, "there is no try there is only do or not do"). By then I knew I
was in serious trouble so, since he refused to take me to the ER I wanted
to call 911 and have them take me - but when I tried to dial he snatched
the phone out of my hands, then I tried to get on the laptop to get in
touch with some of my cyber friends to call *for* me, but he snatched the
laptop from my hands. I told him I wasn't moving and I'd just wait until
he went to sleep and call then and that there was nothing he could do
about it. He said (after knowing every detail of what I went through in
the snakepit (seriously, this is a horror story you simply would not
believe could happen in the twentieth, much less the twentyfirst
century)) that if I didn't do as he said he'd have me committed again!!!
That scared me so badly that all I could do was lie there and whimper -
trying not to cry too hard so he wouldn't hear me.

But after an hour of fighting with him which was making me more and more
weak he let me call my son and my son too one look at me and called the
EMTs to come out to bring me to the ER. I was so freaking weak that the
had to life me out of bed onto the stretcher. At the ER they took some
blood tests and admitted me again (without telling me why and not seeing
a doctor). It was 1:00AM and I still hadn't seen a doctor so I checked
myself out AMA (the nurse finally told me that my T(something) serums
indicated damage to my heart. But since I still hadn't seen a doctor I
just wanted to go home and see my own doctor whom I trusted, which I did.
I told him the whole sordid story and he took an EKG right there in the
office then had me immediately admitted to another hospital on an
emergency basis. They did an echocardiogram which showed massive damage
to the muscles on the left side of my heart, and because they weren't
working properly it allowed blood to pool inside my left ventricle which
turned into a huge blood clot. They said that I had to have had a
massive heart attack sometime in the past couple of months - but the pain
from the RSD is so intense that I didn't feel it (not even the different
symptoms that are sometimes reported in women as opposed to men when it
happened.

Since then it's been a saga of fighting with my insurance company to get
short-term disability and going through Binder and Binder to get on SSD
because at the point it's hard for me to get out of bed to go to all the
doctor visits. My doctors have told me it would be pretty much
impossible for me to work again (if for nothing else because I can't get
my weight to even close to 100 pounds (at the height of 5' 5.5" that
gives me a BMI of 15 when my absolute lowest should be 18).

Anyway, I think that's about it, probably there are huge holes in the
story that I just forgot about here (especially since this turned into a
mini-novel, and especially the medications I'm taking are not indusive to
thinking much less conversing ;). Feel free to ask whatever questions
you might have if I haven't made something clear enough.

--
Hugs,

CatNipped
See all our masters at: http://www.PossiblePlaces.com/CatNipped

See the RPCA FAQ site, by Mark Edwards, at:
http://www.professional-geek.com/rpcablog/

"Nomen Nescio" wrote in message
...
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

From: "CatNipped"

I didn't get any emails from you.

--
Hugs,

CatNipped

Sent it last night.
The isn't munged, right?

Our internet has been kinda flaky the past 24 hrs. Slow e-mail, service
dropouts, and other odd stuff.

I sent my wife a couple of links this morning. It took 8 hrs for the
e-mail
to get to her. I finally just printed them out and handed them to her in
her office (a distance of about 25 ft from my computer).
The joys of modern technology.

If it doesn't show up soon, I'll resend it.

Probably the holiday shopping traffic.

Bah, f#@kin', humbug!




-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: N/A

iQCVAwUBTPNlEZMoscYxZNI5AQGNJgP+K8ppJeM/F9cEPne8U5U6eO7n+DPyQFTe
1YNJqkMELnrYUjvaFrz2VGvO2y+TvuBSuewl328y6RLPdefE+d O24jOUOityzJBS
ChFDZ5S2dBjPFCeHYfRmjmqb+1C/7ng7LbRZ7yEZnCeiutOFxFWVhDzjMrZV+1Od
Nr89RuRV3zA=
=3JR/
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Hey, you don't have to convince anyone of anything. It is your life but I
was just going by things that happened to me and, I would be scared. What
you do it your business and this sounds like it is rough on both sides.
Purrs for both of you.
"CatNipped" wrote in message
...
What can I say - there *are* two sides of the story and we're *both*
seeing a psychiatrist (at first separately then later on together) - we've
been together for 25 years and, aside from the "belly bump" he's never
touched me in anger, and *believe me* he's been pushed beyond the limits
of most men. The taking away the phone incident, he says, was to get me to
get up and stop lying in bed giving up and wanting to die (this was
*before* we knew about the heart problem and I had scared the bejeezus out
of him with the suicide attempt - I came that close to dying) and
afterwards he was as twisted up as I was if not more.

I know all those things are what an enabler would say, but there's no way
I could convince anyone any other way.

--
Hugs,

CatNipped
See all our masters at: http://www.PossiblePlaces.com/CatNipped

See the RPCA FAQ site, by Mark Edwards, at:
http://www.professional-geek.com/rpcablog/

"Granby" wrote in message
...
My question if I were allowed one is why is Ben still with you. I would
think you would be terrified to have him in the same house and so would
you son. For your sake be afraid I mean.
"CatNipped" wrote in message
...
Ah, the heck with it - I'm so (too) much of an open book here I may as
well just repost it all in condensed form - everyone here has heard it
in bits and pieces and can just ignore it please (and, regulars, since I
promised I wouldn't bring this up here any more, I apologize, and please
hit delete now)...

In a nutshell...

Years ago I shattered my right wrist (Ben "belly-bumped" me during an
argument when I "got in his face" and sent me flying across the garage
to land on my right hand). Over the years it never did heal correctly,
the pain just traveled up the arm to the neck and we thought I might
injured a disk in my neck, so they did an anterior discectomy with
fusion at C6-C7. After that the pain kept getting worse and worse until
it became unbearable. I went to a Pain Clinic and was FINALLY diagnosed
with Regional Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) - also known as Chronic
Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). RSD is a degenerative, ultimately fatal
disease - though most people with RSD die from suicide because of the
relentless, ever present pain, and crippling because it causes the bones
and muscles to atrophy, disfigure and deform - these are pictures of RSD
patients: http://www.rsdrx.com/rsdphoto.htm). It has all kinds of bad
symptoms, but I won't list them here - if you're really curious you can
read about it at http://www.rsdhope.org/.

RSD/CRPS/Causalgia registers on the McGill pain index at a 42:
http://www.rsdhope.org/ShowPage.asp?page_id=116. Aside from all that,
my right shoulder was completely messed up, so I had to have massive
bone reconstruction surgery - and every surgery is considered an injury
by the RSD and it finds a new home to settle in on. During all this I
had used up all my PTO at work, and because of the merger my company had
there was *WAY* more work than usual. So I had to keep working no
matter what pain I was in (Ben's been out of work for 2 years now. I
was taking more and stronger narcotics (100mcg Fentanyl (equivalent to
morphine), 30mg Oxicodone, Tramadol, Klonopin, Ambien (so I could sleep
at all, etc.), OTC pain killers. Now they have me on straight Morphine
and Oxycodine and an antiimflamatory. Nothing works.

I noticed that I kept getting weaker and weaker - unable to walk just a
few steps without dropping to the floor so I could catch my breath.
That was symptomatic of RSD and the massive amount of narcotics I was
taking, but because of the severity of it I just could not, physically,
take anymore - my body had no more strength with which to fight the
illness or even keep me upright. One day I came home from work and took
40 Ambiens and 50 morphine tablets (but, believe it or not, it was not
my intention to just die - it was me screaming as loud as I could,
directly AT Ben, my doctors, and the whole world asking, no begging for
help. I told Ben almost immediately after I took the pills - and I even
kept enough "left overs" to get me through the month until I could get
the prescriptions the next month. Still, I can't make excuses, with all
that I took it could have gone either way and even more possibly the
*wrong* way (whether for me or anyone else I still don't know, and I
have to admit that those feelings are still there somewhere).

They checked me into the hospital on a "24 hour suicide hold". [I had a
very nice bible-thumping Nigerian as my watcher, and he could not leave
me alone long enough to use the bathroom within my room]. They kept me
there for four days and they would not give *any* medication (not even a
sleeping pill so I could get some rest - I still can't believe they
stopped all of my medication, *COLD TURKEY*! - given the nature of some
of those drugs, not to mention the *combinations* of those drugs, they
could have *KILLED* me... it was 98 hours of conscious, wide-awake hell
(or the purest form of hell we could have here on earth).

After the four days there they transported me to a psychiatric hospital
(don't let them tell you there are no more "snake pits" in the world.
Describing this place would take a novel but, believe me, they hire some
severely ****ed up sadists who work at that place. I had to stay there
at least 3 days (still no drugs or sleep aids, so it was another 72
hours of wide-awake hell), even though it was a "voluntary" commitment
(had I not agreed to self commitment they would have put me in
involuntarily and I would have been there *much* longer than three days.

I got out in three days, but about 3 days later, still suffering from
withdrawals and just plain sick as a dog, I could not get out of bed and
get to the truck for blood tests (going and then coming back home from
them the day *before* was so exhausting I couldn't walk by myself and
Ben wouldn't carry me to my bed (at 90 pounds this would not be that
much of a chore for a 300 pound, very strong man) so I had to literally
*crawl* on hands and knees across the driveway, across the cement floor
of the garage, through my sitting room and into my bedroom and try to
pull myself up to my very tall bed (I almost just gave up and lay there
next to it)). But the next day Ben kept insisting that I could get up
and walk around if I just tried (he even had the nerve to quote Yoda
from Star Wars, "there is no try there is only do or not do"). By then
I knew I was in serious trouble so, since he refused to take me to the
ER I wanted to call 911 and have them take me - but when I tried to dial
he snatched the phone out of my hands, then I tried to get on the laptop
to get in touch with some of my cyber friends to call *for* me, but he
snatched the laptop from my hands. I told him I wasn't moving and I'd
just wait until he went to sleep and call then and that there was
nothing he could do about it. He said (after knowing every detail of
what I went through in the snakepit (seriously, this is a horror story
you simply would not believe could happen in the twentieth, much less
the twentyfirst century)) that if I didn't do as he said he'd have me
committed again!!! That scared me so badly that all I could do was lie
there and whimper - trying not to cry too hard so he wouldn't hear me.

But after an hour of fighting with him which was making me more and more
weak he let me call my son and my son too one look at me and called the
EMTs to come out to bring me to the ER. I was so freaking weak that the
had to life me out of bed onto the stretcher. At the ER they took some
blood tests and admitted me again (without telling me why and not seeing
a doctor). It was 1:00AM and I still hadn't seen a doctor so I checked
myself out AMA (the nurse finally told me that my T(something) serums
indicated damage to my heart. But since I still hadn't seen a doctor I
just wanted to go home and see my own doctor whom I trusted, which I
did. I told him the whole sordid story and he took an EKG right there in
the office then had me immediately admitted to another hospital on an
emergency basis. They did an echocardiogram which showed massive damage
to the muscles on the left side of my heart, and because they weren't
working properly it allowed blood to pool inside my left ventricle which
turned into a huge blood clot. They said that I had to have had a
massive heart attack sometime in the past couple of months - but the
pain from the RSD is so intense that I didn't feel it (not even the
different symptoms that are sometimes reported in women as opposed to
men when it happened.

Since then it's been a saga of fighting with my insurance company to get
short-term disability and going through Binder and Binder to get on SSD
because at the point it's hard for me to get out of bed to go to all the
doctor visits. My doctors have told me it would be pretty much
impossible for me to work again (if for nothing else because I can't get
my weight to even close to 100 pounds (at the height of 5' 5.5" that
gives me a BMI of 15 when my absolute lowest should be 18).

Anyway, I think that's about it, probably there are huge holes in the
story that I just forgot about here (especially since this turned into a
mini-novel, and especially the medications I'm taking are not indusive
to thinking much less conversing ;). Feel free to ask whatever
questions you might have if I haven't made something clear enough.

--
Hugs,

CatNipped
See all our masters at: http://www.PossiblePlaces.com/CatNipped

See the RPCA FAQ site, by Mark Edwards, at:
http://www.professional-geek.com/rpcablog/

"Nomen Nescio" wrote in message
...
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

From: "CatNipped"

I didn't get any emails from you.

--
Hugs,

CatNipped

Sent it last night.
The isn't munged, right?

Our internet has been kinda flaky the past 24 hrs. Slow e-mail, service
dropouts, and other odd stuff.

I sent my wife a couple of links this morning. It took 8 hrs for the
e-mail
to get to her. I finally just printed them out and handed them to her
in
her office (a distance of about 25 ft from my computer).
The joys of modern technology.

If it doesn't show up soon, I'll resend it.

Probably the holiday shopping traffic.

Bah, f#@kin', humbug!




-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: N/A

iQCVAwUBTPNlEZMoscYxZNI5AQGNJgP+K8ppJeM/F9cEPne8U5U6eO7n+DPyQFTe
1YNJqkMELnrYUjvaFrz2VGvO2y+TvuBSuewl328y6RLPdefE+d O24jOUOityzJBS
ChFDZ5S2dBjPFCeHYfRmjmqb+1C/7ng7LbRZ7yEZnCeiutOFxFWVhDzjMrZV+1Od
Nr89RuRV3zA=
=3JR/
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

I know Granby - but, being human, I tend to forget or "gloss over" my part
of the blame. The "belly bump" came after I threw an outdoor trash can at
his head and then shoved my face three inches from his to scream in his
face. Yes, he should have turned around and walked away (the trash can
didn't actually hit him, I have lousy aim), but I don't think he thought
pushing me away with his belly could send me flying - he's poor at physics -
my (then)125 pounds vs. his 300 pounds shouldn't take an Einstein to figure
I'd go airborne (sorry, bad joke).

As I said, we're working on it.

--
Hugs,

CatNipped
See all our masters at: http://www.PossiblePlaces.com/CatNipped

See the RPCA FAQ site, by Mark Edwards, at:
http://www.professional-geek.com/rpcablog/

"Granby" wrote in message
...
Hey, you don't have to convince anyone of anything. It is your life but I
was just going by things that happened to me and, I would be scared. What
you do it your business and this sounds like it is rough on both sides.
Purrs for both of you.
"CatNipped" wrote in message
...
What can I say - there *are* two sides of the story and we're *both*
seeing a psychiatrist (at first separately then later on together) -
we've been together for 25 years and, aside from the "belly bump" he's
never touched me in anger, and *believe me* he's been pushed beyond the
limits of most men. The taking away the phone incident, he says, was to
get me to get up and stop lying in bed giving up and wanting to die (this
was *before* we knew about the heart problem and I had scared the
bejeezus out of him with the suicide attempt - I came that close to
dying) and afterwards he was as twisted up as I was if not more.

I know all those things are what an enabler would say, but there's no way
I could convince anyone any other way.

--
Hugs,

CatNipped
See all our masters at: http://www.PossiblePlaces.com/CatNipped

See the RPCA FAQ site, by Mark Edwards, at:
http://www.professional-geek.com/rpcablog/

"Granby" wrote in message
...
My question if I were allowed one is why is Ben still with you. I would
think you would be terrified to have him in the same house and so would
you son. For your sake be afraid I mean.
"CatNipped" wrote in message
...
Ah, the heck with it - I'm so (too) much of an open book here I may as
well just repost it all in condensed form - everyone here has heard it
in bits and pieces and can just ignore it please (and, regulars, since
I promised I wouldn't bring this up here any more, I apologize, and
please hit delete now)...

In a nutshell...

Years ago I shattered my right wrist (Ben "belly-bumped" me during an
argument when I "got in his face" and sent me flying across the garage
to land on my right hand). Over the years it never did heal correctly,
the pain just traveled up the arm to the neck and we thought I might
injured a disk in my neck, so they did an anterior discectomy with
fusion at C6-C7. After that the pain kept getting worse and worse until
it became unbearable. I went to a Pain Clinic and was FINALLY diagnosed
with Regional Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) - also known as Chronic
Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). RSD is a degenerative, ultimately fatal
disease - though most people with RSD die from suicide because of the
relentless, ever present pain, and crippling because it causes the
bones and muscles to atrophy, disfigure and deform - these are pictures
of RSD patients: http://www.rsdrx.com/rsdphoto.htm). It has all kinds
of bad symptoms, but I won't list them here - if you're really curious
you can read about it at http://www.rsdhope.org/.

RSD/CRPS/Causalgia registers on the McGill pain index at a 42:
http://www.rsdhope.org/ShowPage.asp?page_id=116. Aside from all that,
my right shoulder was completely messed up, so I had to have massive
bone reconstruction surgery - and every surgery is considered an injury
by the RSD and it finds a new home to settle in on. During all this I
had used up all my PTO at work, and because of the merger my company
had there was *WAY* more work than usual. So I had to keep working no
matter what pain I was in (Ben's been out of work for 2 years now. I
was taking more and stronger narcotics (100mcg Fentanyl (equivalent to
morphine), 30mg Oxicodone, Tramadol, Klonopin, Ambien (so I could sleep
at all, etc.), OTC pain killers. Now they have me on straight Morphine
and Oxycodine and an antiimflamatory. Nothing works.

I noticed that I kept getting weaker and weaker - unable to walk just a
few steps without dropping to the floor so I could catch my breath.
That was symptomatic of RSD and the massive amount of narcotics I was
taking, but because of the severity of it I just could not, physically,
take anymore - my body had no more strength with which to fight the
illness or even keep me upright. One day I came home from work and
took 40 Ambiens and 50 morphine tablets (but, believe it or not, it was
not my intention to just die - it was me screaming as loud as I could,
directly AT Ben, my doctors, and the whole world asking, no begging for
help. I told Ben almost immediately after I took the pills - and I
even kept enough "left overs" to get me through the month until I could
get the prescriptions the next month. Still, I can't make excuses, with
all that I took it could have gone either way and even more possibly
the *wrong* way (whether for me or anyone else I still don't know, and
I have to admit that those feelings are still there somewhere).

They checked me into the hospital on a "24 hour suicide hold". [I had
a very nice bible-thumping Nigerian as my watcher, and he could not
leave me alone long enough to use the bathroom within my room]. They
kept me there for four days and they would not give *any* medication
(not even a sleeping pill so I could get some rest - I still can't
believe they stopped all of my medication, *COLD TURKEY*! - given the
nature of some of those drugs, not to mention the *combinations* of
those drugs, they could have *KILLED* me... it was 98 hours of
conscious, wide-awake hell (or the purest form of hell we could have
here on earth).

After the four days there they transported me to a psychiatric hospital
(don't let them tell you there are no more "snake pits" in the world.
Describing this place would take a novel but, believe me, they hire
some severely ****ed up sadists who work at that place. I had to stay
there at least 3 days (still no drugs or sleep aids, so it was another
72 hours of wide-awake hell), even though it was a "voluntary"
commitment (had I not agreed to self commitment they would have put me
in involuntarily and I would have been there *much* longer than three
days.

I got out in three days, but about 3 days later, still suffering from
withdrawals and just plain sick as a dog, I could not get out of bed
and get to the truck for blood tests (going and then coming back home
from them the day *before* was so exhausting I couldn't walk by myself
and Ben wouldn't carry me to my bed (at 90 pounds this would not be
that much of a chore for a 300 pound, very strong man) so I had to
literally *crawl* on hands and knees across the driveway, across the
cement floor of the garage, through my sitting room and into my bedroom
and try to pull myself up to my very tall bed (I almost just gave up
and lay there next to it)). But the next day Ben kept insisting that I
could get up and walk around if I just tried (he even had the nerve to
quote Yoda from Star Wars, "there is no try there is only do or not
do"). By then I knew I was in serious trouble so, since he refused to
take me to the ER I wanted to call 911 and have them take me - but when
I tried to dial he snatched the phone out of my hands, then I tried to
get on the laptop to get in touch with some of my cyber friends to call
*for* me, but he snatched the laptop from my hands. I told him I
wasn't moving and I'd just wait until he went to sleep and call then
and that there was nothing he could do about it. He said (after
knowing every detail of what I went through in the snakepit (seriously,
this is a horror story you simply would not believe could happen in the
twentieth, much less the twentyfirst century)) that if I didn't do as
he said he'd have me committed again!!! That scared me so badly that
all I could do was lie there and whimper - trying not to cry too hard
so he wouldn't hear me.

But after an hour of fighting with him which was making me more and
more weak he let me call my son and my son too one look at me and
called the EMTs to come out to bring me to the ER. I was so freaking
weak that the had to life me out of bed onto the stretcher. At the ER
they took some blood tests and admitted me again (without telling me
why and not seeing a doctor). It was 1:00AM and I still hadn't seen a
doctor so I checked myself out AMA (the nurse finally told me that my
T(something) serums indicated damage to my heart. But since I still
hadn't seen a doctor I just wanted to go home and see my own doctor
whom I trusted, which I did. I told him the whole sordid story and he
took an EKG right there in the office then had me immediately admitted
to another hospital on an emergency basis. They did an echocardiogram
which showed massive damage to the muscles on the left side of my
heart, and because they weren't working properly it allowed blood to
pool inside my left ventricle which turned into a huge blood clot.
They said that I had to have had a massive heart attack sometime in the
past couple of months - but the pain from the RSD is so intense that I
didn't feel it (not even the different symptoms that are sometimes
reported in women as opposed to men when it happened.

Since then it's been a saga of fighting with my insurance company to
get short-term disability and going through Binder and Binder to get on
SSD because at the point it's hard for me to get out of bed to go to
all the doctor visits. My doctors have told me it would be pretty much
impossible for me to work again (if for nothing else because I can't
get my weight to even close to 100 pounds (at the height of 5' 5.5"
that gives me a BMI of 15 when my absolute lowest should be 18).

Anyway, I think that's about it, probably there are huge holes in the
story that I just forgot about here (especially since this turned into
a mini-novel, and especially the medications I'm taking are not
indusive to thinking much less conversing ;). Feel free to ask
whatever questions you might have if I haven't made something clear
enough.

--
Hugs,

CatNipped
See all our masters at: http://www.PossiblePlaces.com/CatNipped

See the RPCA FAQ site, by Mark Edwards, at:
http://www.professional-geek.com/rpcablog/

"Nomen Nescio" wrote in message
...
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

From: "CatNipped"

I didn't get any emails from you.

--
Hugs,

CatNipped

Sent it last night.
The isn't munged, right?

Our internet has been kinda flaky the past 24 hrs. Slow e-mail,
service
dropouts, and other odd stuff.

I sent my wife a couple of links this morning. It took 8 hrs for the
e-mail
to get to her. I finally just printed them out and handed them to her
in
her office (a distance of about 25 ft from my computer).
The joys of modern technology.

If it doesn't show up soon, I'll resend it.

Probably the holiday shopping traffic.

Bah, f#@kin', humbug!




-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: N/A

iQCVAwUBTPNlEZMoscYxZNI5AQGNJgP+K8ppJeM/F9cEPne8U5U6eO7n+DPyQFTe
1YNJqkMELnrYUjvaFrz2VGvO2y+TvuBSuewl328y6RLPdefE+d O24jOUOityzJBS
ChFDZ5S2dBjPFCeHYfRmjmqb+1C/7ng7LbRZ7yEZnCeiutOFxFWVhDzjMrZV+1Od
Nr89RuRV3zA=
=3JR/
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Thank you, 'Nomen', I try to keep positive because I haven't had any of the
real deformities of stage four yet - just the pain and only a very small
instance of red spots on my arms and my left foot swelling unless I take
lots of Lasix (which causes its own problems) - I've been told, and I hang
on to this like a life saver, that some rare cases don't go much further
than that. I think the doctor's fears are more for the damage the RSD has
done to my heart and other major organs rather than the muscles and bones.

--
Hugs,

CatNipped
See all our masters at: http://www.PossiblePlaces.com/CatNipped

See the RPCA FAQ site, by Mark Edwards, at:
http://www.professional-geek.com/rpcablog/

"Nomen Nescio" wrote in message
...
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

From: "CatNipped"

In a nutshell...

Wow. I'm speechless. And that's pretty rare for me.
That's a hell of a lot to be hit with in such a short time span.

The last I knew, your shoulder and upper back was sore, you
were trying to get decent pain meds, and, I believe, you lost an
old friend because she thought it was better to suffer than take
those evil pain meds.

I don't think I'll say much more until I digest all this.

Well, maybe one thing....

My doctors have told me it would be pretty much impossible
for me to work again

Doctors have told me:

"You'll never be able to sit down or stand up without pain"
WRONG! Pain gone in 6 months after doing 20 minutes/day of painful
stretching
exercises.

"You'll always have a slight limp"
WRONG! Gone in 3 months. Gets a little sore when a storm is coming.

"You'll never regain full motion of your right arm nor feeling on the
right
side of your chest"
WRONG! A year later, my arm was moving fine (again, lots of stretching).
Feeling in my right side took a little longer.......About 10 years and 95%
recovery.

"I don't think the FAA will let you fly, again, with half your right lung
gone"
WRONG! I had to jump through a few hoops, though.

There are a few others, but you get the point.
Trust the doctors to patch you up.
Don't trust them to define the rest of your life.

Best Wishes




-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: N/A

iQCVAwUBTPS5GZMoscYxZNI5AQEo8wP/b0cGsxiWqF9Ylf0uONfBCagFthYUoxJP
K5fwjjIWSDgJ7JOizAE3BUgJd9d8iGuo+1DwlVo80ujf1wdvZV H3Lv1Nq5B1ggiL
QWmFASbVsZN0K8tN3JtFMDcJtOMUYMZ4+2URulgeCCa2iESOip/TX8VgVN8OYd+x
F8Xr+dgYOBM=
=FnmJ
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----