Day: June 8, 2014

Feelings about pain meds and such

June 8, 2014 / kirsten

First, I am neither a scientist nor a medical professional. I will mess up terminology and my theories will be unfounded & nonsensical perhaps.

I also am not passing judgment on anyone else or suggesting what anyone else should do in any situation – as we are all individuals and each situation is unique. And for the record not only did I get a morphine drip for a second yesterday, they also tried to get me to take Percocet and wrote me an Rx for Vicodin (I didn’t take the pills and didn’t fill the script – but I did have a glass of wine when I got home).

Now that that is out of the way lets talk about me and pain medication and what not.

Some of you know that I suffered a traumatic head injury about 15 yrs ago. This has caused my natural pain-gauge to go off kilter and I find it difficult to provide accurate measurements to what I’m experiencing at times. This can be useful and a bit of a curse, depending on how you look at it.

I have a notion that I’m just going to throw out there. I don’t think pain medications work on me – at all – period. Like I am mostly immune to them, if that is a thing.

Twelve yrs ago when I was having my second son (post tbi) I don’t think the epidural worked. I ended up with some permanent numbness (in my legs) but that is the only thing I can tell you that epidural did to me. It was the only sensation I was aware of.

I usually refuse pain meds, not because I am cool or tough, I have my own reasons that are personal and about me and no one else – but yesterday they gave me a morphine drip prior to cleaning out the wound. It made my arm itch like crazy – but as soon as I realized what was going on, I unplugged the syringe that had the dope in it. I don’t know how much of it got in me – but I know it had zero affect on my leg (I did start to giggle and the room got very bright & blurry for a few mins).

THEN the doctor started shooting lidocaine directly into the open wound and under the flaps of skin. Not only did I feel every injection, I then felt EVERTHING she did to me. I watched the whole time and it was not in my head, I did not imagine it. I felt when she cut my skin off, I felt when she scraped the rocks out, I felt when she flushed and scrubbed and I felt the needle and thread going in and out. Not the nudge of it, the very stinging, burning sensation of it. I was screaming like a maniac and my poor husband said, “She doesn’t cry like that it hurts her”.

She told me to look away and that it was ‘impossible’ for me to ‘metabolize to the drugs’ [and feel the pain].

What she doesn’t know is that my brain works different. I BELIEVE that the way opiates work are by hindering or obstructing a signal in your brain that tells you youre in pain and that somewhere among what I imagine to be a spider web or highway of connections in my brain that carries those signals, there is a road block.

In the same way that I have complete numbness in some parts of my body, and an inability to experience pain at other times, narcotics just don’t work for me.

When the impact occurred many years ago, leaving my skull fractured and me in a coma, it shook things up and left the ‘synapse roadmap’ askew in my head, and for that reason, the little neurons or electrons or whatever the fuck they are, don’t make it to their intended destination.

That is my theory. So yeah, by all means, if you get a tooth extracted or strain your back or whatever and the medication does its job and provides you with relief, good, that’s what it is supposed to do but for me, it just doesn’t work – and I don’t like feeling loopy in my head, especially when it doesn’t take the pain away any how.

So please, if you made it this far in my silly little post, pray that my cut heals and does not get infected – because I don’t want them to have to open it up and reclose it. ((unless it is a lesson for me to experience the pain to be more sensitive to others who have pain))

Thank you – be well,

Luv K

dnf

June 8, 2014 / kirsten

I didn’t run the Zooma Half last weekend so I’d be ready & healthy for the North Face EC today. And I was ready. It started out great, I had good coffee, I got to see Dean Karnazes again and the weather was perfect.

More than half way through, I felt good and I was doing well. When I was approaching the turning point in the course, the two course workers were clapping and shouting “There she is, she’s looking great”

I assumed they were speaking about someone behind me that they knew but I didn’t do my usual smile or look back. The course looked a little different than I remembered it from 3 years ago.

After they marked my bib and sent me on my way, I turned and realized they’d been speaking to me.

I felt excited and proud. I looked at my watch and realized I was on point to finish in under 8 hours which gave me an hour of leeway and put me way under the deadline. In that moment I was elated.

I’d not run since the 50 miles a month before other than a few one mile light jogs here and there, and had been primarily just doing strength and core at home. And yet I was going to finish strong.

I waved and thanked them for cheering for me. I started to almost leap carelessly for just a bit.

Then I lost my footing on one of the most technical and rocky stretches. I had just taken off my gloves (because my hands were swelling) and I felt myself flying forward. I screamed.

Suddenly there were other runners coming towards me. One by one they started to show and stand around me. I didn’t realize how bad it was. They were looking for tissues and asking me what they could do. They moved me off to the side. The crowd was growing. I literally believed I would just wrap it up and be on my way.

I kept telling them to leave me and not mess up their times. I wish I could remember all their names and thank them.

The two guys who were cheering for me called the medical emergency staff to come get me. It took them a while to arrive, because the course was super narrow and I was clear out in the middle of no darn where.

The jeep arrived and the EMTs rinsed off my knee. I was squeezing someone’s hand off from the pain. They wrapped it up tight and said it definitely needed to be stitched but that they couldn’t stitch it because it was full of rocks and it needed to be cleaned out, and they weren’t equipped to do that in the field.

“But I want to finish, you wrapped it, I’m more than half done, let me finish, its just a couple more hours”

“You’re bleeding right through the bandages, we’ve already called an ambulance and you need to go to a hospital”

And just like that I was a DNF.

The jeep ride back was an adventure to say the least. Runners who were wearing headphones despite the rule not to, couldnt hear us beeping. The trail was barely as wide as the jeep and the drop was hundreds of feet if we were to go over the edge.

That wasn’t the scariest part of the afternoon though. After an enjoyable ambulance ride, I had to sit and wait for hours for them to clean all the rocks out of my knee.

I wont go into many more details or share the pictures that Im not sure why I took (and if youre super lucky I txt’d to you today). I sure was nervous though.

My normally low 77/52 bloodpressure spiked when they started messing w it to 115/80 (normal for some people but not me).

At this point I was squeezing Steve’s hand and watching w/ terror every poke, scrub, prod and clip. The doctor thought I should look away but I just couldn’t.

Again I wish I knew everyone’s name so I could send thank you cards. I know they were all just doing their jobs but I appreciated them all very much.

Now I have to monitor my knee closely for two wks for signs of infection, as so much flesh is gone there is only so much that could be done and it is basically a raw, seeping wound for now.

This is the part in the story where I say Everything Happens for a Reason and There’s Always a Next Time and {fill in all the similar comments} – yeah, I get it and guess what, I know and I understand and it will all be ok and I need to heal and so on – but today – Im sad – Im very sad – I keep randomly crying.

But I’ll get over it….and I’ll run again.