Monday, April 25, 2011

Mind or Body; What Breaks First?

  The psychological problems that I suffer are well documented in the pages of this site. The major problem is the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome diagnosis. Not only is it the more prevalent of my mental disorders it is also the one problem I have had to deal with the longest, over thirty years. My body also has its share of problems. While serving in the military, I injured my lower back and suffered in silence for many years. I have a way of denying that age may be playing a part in my body crying out for some help. While I was a young buck I was a daredevil. We had a place where we used to spend a lot of time during the summer. It was a huge hole in the mountain filled with the most beautiful blue water. Hence the name, the blue hole. I was one of a few that would do crazy shit at that place. It was not crazy, then. Looking back, I wonder how I survived some of the stunts accomplished. We had different cliffs that we named. Three point, because of the three rocks that jutted out and was a great launching pad to clear the rock ledges beneath it. Three point was about 50 feet from the water. The one that only a few had the nuts to conquer, or the lack of brains, however you want to put it, was called first drill bit. The name came from what it sounds. It was a straight line from top to the water and was used in blasting the quarry many years ago. This was about an 80 foot jump where you had to wear tennis shoes to keep from blistering the bottom of your feet. After several people died from jumping into the water the place was gated and closed. It broke the hearts of many of the locals. We had some memories of the blue hole. I could handle all the wild stuff, back then. When I reached the age of forty I payed the price of all those idiotic stunts. That is when the pain in my back really started. At age 47, my wife and I were a team operated commercial driver. We had been driving long hauls for several years when my wife, who is suffering from fibromyalgia, had to stop driving. I did not make it but a couple more years before I had to have a spinal fusion of my lumbar vertebrae. My days of sports, diving, any hard labor were over. I have had a total of 4 back surgeries and I have epidurals bi-monthly. That is the reason I have become cyclic in my postings. There are days when I just cannot sit at the computer for any length of time. This has been the hardest, psychologically, for me to accept. My body has screamed UNCLE. I was having my epidural done last month when I told Susan, the nurse anesthetist, that she should adjust the diprovan, the same drug that Michael Jackson overdosed, because of my recent weight gain. When I started out with these epi's my weight was a mere 175. Now, I am at 217. When Susan listened to what I had to say she said we would do a little experiment. After I was given the diprovan, I was to count one Mississippi, two Mississippi, etc. She said that I should be out of it by the time I reached 5. I made it to 18 before the lights went out. The recovery room nurse said I woke up counting 21 Mississippi, 22 Mississippi. They all got a good laugh about that. Susan did promise me that the next time I came back she promised me that I would not make it to five. Thus the 64 dollar question. What will give out first, the mind or the body? God only knows.   theblogmeister