10 yr chronic pain veteren. One day healthy, happy, hardworking, funloving, nonstop ball of fire.   Next day racked with unrelenting, overwhelming life altering pain.  One day successful upper management with 15 years experience and 'can do' 'never quit' reputation.  Within 6 mos, ended up hospitalized with life threatening kidney infections resulting from 'never quitting', 'pushing through the pain' attitude, totally disabled, on SS and LTD. There have been intermittent episodes of bearable pain with heavy duty meds allowing a former shadow of myself to peak through. Those have become nearly nonexistent and further apart. Married the man of my dreams 3 years before onset. He takes care of me, dotes on me and loves me, I am lucky. We have 'Irish twins' (2 children born within 12 months ). They are wonderful, happy, normal and helpful (age appropriately). These three people that I love have had to watch as I decline. I have a great deal of self imposed guilt over that. I used to be the 'Martha Stewart' of our crowd, now adays it is all I can do to keep up the laundry (now un-ironed), acknowledge a holiday (I USED TO decorate,  celebrate, craft and entertain) or cook (I USED to bake glorious confectionary creations) and I NEVER said I USED TO!!!!!   Bitter? No.  Sad? Yes.  In shock? No longer.

Why am I on this site? It makes sense that since my Pain Management Doctors waiting room is always full, there had to be others with similar experiences. People that are in pain as well, people that would like to initiate/participate in conversation but haven't the strength. Not as a 'misery loves company' community, but as a forum to communicate within and not be concerned with those that look down on/in, pity, disbelief, envy (you get paid to stay home ?), others like us. Others that are lonely, with the same wall as mine, the wall of pain we hide behind. We want to connect with others, but that wall it is in our way. Others that understand that IF you can sit, lay, curl in just the right position with just the right ice/heat pack and move/not move just right you can sustain/remember what it was like to have someone to talk with. AND you can answer anytime day or night. You can take hours to put down a thought, take time to remember the word (without someone trying to guess it) and not feel like a crazy because you needed to rest, during the thought.