I don't really expect anyone to care about all of this but I need to get it out.

For 3 years after the strokes, I couldn't cry and I couldn't laugh. Physically could not do it. Many times I wanted and needed to cry.

Yesterday I bottomed out at the prospect of one more proceedure to ease the pain in my lower back. And started crying. I findally took a xanax, which helped a lot. All of us are made up of so many experiences other people don't know about. These experiences are a part of the whole.

Why was I crying yesterday?

I just wish there was someone to talk to who knows what it is like to live in unrelenting pain and watching her life become smaller and smaller. My son used to complain alot and my daughter-in-law would tell him to call 1-800-whine! My thoughts are a jumble at the moment. Think I'll just go ahead and pretend like i am talking to a dear trusted friend.

All of us have mountains to cross in our lives - some more than others. My life seems to be a series of mountain ranges that stretch out for as far as my eyes can see beginning at the age of 2 with sexual, physical, and emotional abuse that continued until I got out when I turned 18. I took the hard road out, though, by getting pregnant, marriage and a sweet little baby, Randy. Terry and I were two kids having a kid. Not surprisingly, he'd get drunk and beat me. I got out again.

My now husband and I have been married for 38 years. Gary just loved Randy and ultimately adopted him as his own. Our second son, Will, came along a few years later. There was a long period of lovely valley living. And then Randy died at 17 from cancer That was one mountain I almost didn't make it over. Losing a child never goes away. It has been 24 years and there are still moments when it hits me all over again.

Our lives smoothed out for a number of years until Will was gone. Emotionally I began to fall apart, ended in therapy and worked so hard to get over the mountain range of my childhood.

I went into that therapy at the same time I came down with Chronic Fatigue Syndrom. By the time i figured out what I had, I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. Oh Crap! another mountain and I am fighting my way over it when BLAM my first stroke happened! 3 weeks later an even more massive stroke.

I am a fighter! Climbing, scrambling, falling, scrtaching my way over this everlasting mountain.

I've lived with the pain in my low hips for years. I've learned a lot of coping methods for dealing with pain. And then, suddenly it has gotten so severe I can barely function. I've already had the series of injections the drs put into the nerves in my back to deaden the pain. It didn't last long and while it can be repeated twice a year, the expense is just too great. I take a low dose of tyleno with codiene and vicodin My primary dr. helps as best as she can.

I am desperate to stop this pain! And I am just worn out with it. I don't know if i can fight anymore. Is it self pity? Perhaps. I don't ask why me because that is pointless. Time to go.

:yadayada: Thanks for listening anyway.