Hi folks

I do sincerely apologise for the lack of posts, & thought it time I explain my situation as the posts may have to stop for a while; believe me, I feel terrible for letting the animals down by not posting their stories…but there is nothing I can do as yet!.

Hopefully if all things go to plan, I should be back to posting several stories a day, around August time, so I do hope you all will wait for me! Being stuck in a dam wheelchair means there is little I can do regards animal advocacy…but by doing this blog, posting news stories etc. It has become my own little online fight against animal abuse. Not being able to post what & when I like is very frustrating, plus I feel I am letting you; the readers down!

As some of you know, I’ve suffered with chronic back & leg pain since a horse riding accident in 1999, that was neither mine nor my precious horses fault. (I keep meaning to write the story of how my horse accident happened & put it in the about me page, but I never get the time to write it) However, I have had several failed back surgeries, over the course of the years, to deal with my prolapsed discs & Arachnoiditis (nerve damage); along with every other type of remedial therapy going! As the years have progressed, so has the pain, which has meant increasing the drugs too!. I take a huge amount of tablet morphine  plus I drink the oral morphine, like soda; for breakthrough pain! One would think I should act like I’m drunk the amount I take, but even doctors are shocked that I take so much; but still remain lucid!!

I started to have injections into my back but they only gave me a few hours of pain relief.  The only real pain relief I got was every 6 months, I would go into hospital to be hooked up to spinal epidurals for a week at a time, just to give me a break from the pain & be able to cope with the next 6 months ahead; when you have chronic pain daily, it also makes you very depressed!! Having had so many epidural infusions over the years, I kind of knew something would go wrong one day, I’ve never been one to have much luck!! Of course, I was right, I got bacterial meningitis from the epidural, not just once, but twice…how unlucky is that?? Suffice to say, I can’t have any more epidurals as it’s too risky, besides I couldn’t put myself through that again, the head pain is horrific; nor would I put my family through the worry again!

In the last 2 years there has only been one thing that I have not tried, simply because no surgeon would do it! I have travelled up & down the country seeing so many different doctors, that I had almost given up, my pain is becoming unbearable, when not in my wheelchair, I spend most of my time in bed! I have a laptop but my broadband connection is useless, so unless I can get into my office to work on my desktop pc; no posts get done, apart from when my daughter has posted some for me, whilst I was in hospital last Christmas!

But, at last, my luck seems to be changing! About 3 months ago, my surgeon said he had arranged for me to go up to Middlesbrough to talk to a surgeon at the Middlesbrough spinal trauma unit. After a long discussion about risks, primarily paralysis etc. & more MRI scans; he has agreed to put a morphine pump in my back, providing there are no complications whilst he is actually doing it, as I have another tube that goes into my tummy, certain organs don’t work as they should…that’s as a result of the failed surgeries too! There is only one draw back…I have to come off ALL the oral & tablet morphine I currently take, or else I won’t get any benefit from the pump. The Morphine delivered by the pump will be concentrated & go directly into the spinal area giving me more pain relief  than any tablets I take at present.

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The thought of coming off my morphine by 10 mg a week was & still is very daunting & very painful. But…considering I was taking 560 mg per day, when I started, as of today I have managed to get to 280 mg of morphine a day! I’m quite impressed with myself; although in bloody agony. Plus no oral morphine (well I’ve had just a little) for breakthrough pain but, nothing like I used to. 

Obviously my pain is increasing, the less morphine I take, which is the reason for the lack of posts. Pain dictates my every move, & I still have a long way to go yet, before I reach zero, reducing my morphine by 10 mg a week, that’s if I can actually get that far!! Perhaps once I stop taking it, I might start to feel a little better in myself, morphine has a lot of side effects. I guess this is a little like going cold turkey!!

However, I must remain positive, I have finally been given a chance to have a morphine pump fitted, which will hopefully give me less pain, plus not taking so many morphine tablets, has to be a bonus; they are not good for your body or brain!! So I must press on, in the hopes that I should have a much better quality of life. I’ll still be in the wheelchair, that’s for life, but if I can get my pain to a level whereby I can leave the house again & see my horses…I will be ecstatic! Plus I promise to post as many news stories as is possible !! 🙂

Jules