Friends--

Welcome to my blog -- a chronicle of my experience dealing with chronic pain.

As some of you know, I have been dealing with this condition for nearly a year, following what should have been a fairly routine surgery to fix an arthritic thumb. For some reason, which I couldn't begin to explain  (notwithstanding a year of perpetual doctors visits) my nervous system went batshit (technical term) after the surgery. The result has been on-going nerve pain, which has gradually spread to much of my body, varying greatly in intensity, depending on triggers that I haven't completely figured out. It is a combination of burning, tingling, tightness and itching. It is always there, in varying degrees of intensity. It makes sleeping a challenge, because pain wakes you up. I  am also kind of sleepy a lot of the time because the medication has that effect. My powers of concentration are not what they used to be, which changes how I spend my time.The prognosis is unclear. It could get better, or worse, or stay more or less the same. The pain is not associated with any underlying illness, so I remain a pretty healthy guy. The illness ( or the "syndrome" or the condition" -- I haven't decided how to characterize it in my own mind) is the pain. The pain is the illness. There is, fortunately, nothing else to it.  FWIW, it is not age-related, even if it makes me feel old. It is something to be lived with, rather than cured. In case any of you are getting depressed already from reading this, please don't: I am pretty optimistic that I can learn continue to learn to live well with this, and I am a fortunate and happy person. But there is no doubt that I passed through a fork in the road with this and that it feels different to be me than it did before.

Which brings me to why I have decided to start this blog. I am currently on my way to spend about a month in Chicago at a rehab program for the management of chronic pain. (For you East Coasters out there: no, there is nothing like it this in New York or Boston, just Chicago or Rochester, Minnesota or Cleveland, or Jacksonville , Florida). So I thought this would be a good occasion to share my thoughts about the experience of the program in which I am participating, as well as my thoughts on what brought me here. Who knows, maybe these thoughts can be of some help to others in s similar situation.

So, welcome to my first post. More to follow in the coming days.