Friday (3/20/2015)

Update:

Despite being a bit lightheaded, I had to get out of the house on Thursday.  I didn’t feel safe driving so my son, Joshua, came and got me.  We did some shopping together (Kohls for me & DSW for him) and then he dropped me off at the gym.  I had some dizzy spells; but I enjoyed the time out.  I walked on the prosthesis instead of riding my wheelchair.  That is the most I’ve walked in a couple of months.  The medication (Lyrica and Lidocaine patch) is obviously working because I could walk that much; but it wasn’t pain-free.  I had quite a bit of phantom pain after I got home.  Last night was the first time I’ve been kept awake from phantom pain.  I couldn’t sleep for about 3½ hours due to pain. 

My dizziness (a side effect of Lyrica) is decreasing.  In fact today all I have is a headache.  So I am hoping that in the next day or two that is gone and I can increase my dosage of Lyrica.  If I get rid of the side effects, this pain medication seems to be taking me in the right direction.  Although after doing more reading on the topic, I think that eventually I will be headed to surgery to resection the nerve that is giving me fits.  Basically that means that I have a nerve ending that is too close to the surface and gets stimulated too much.  Imagine a parent of a persistent child who is always pestering his mom or dad for something.  Eventually the parent get cranky and snaps angrily at the child.  That is my nerve—it’s cranky and angry.  These things can develop into a ball-like mass.  So the surgeon cuts the ball off and then buries the end of the nerve deep into muscle tissue where it won’t be stimulated as much.  Hopefully that takes care of the problem; although sometimes the surgery just makes things worse.  Consequently, they don’t rush to surgery.  That’s why we are trying the medication and the Lidocaine patch over the nerve.

Last night as I was drifting off to sleep, I had intense phantom pain that felt like the toes of my missing left foot were being brutally crushed over and over.  In my drowsy state I thought to myself, “If I hold them, maybe the pain will go away.”  So I reached down to grab them and only came up with air.  LOL.  That woke me up.  Of course I started laughing at myself!  I shared this story with some amputee friends and several mentioned they have had a similar experience.

A couple of days ago, I experienced a phantom pain that I had never had before.  The entire bottom of my missing foot was in pain but it also felt like everything was squishy.  I struggled to figure out how to explain it to my wife.  I finally determined that it felt like someone had filled my shoe with extremely hot oatmeal and I was walking in it.  Obviously it was runny oatmeal because it was all squishy between my toes.  I hate runny oatmeal!!!  When I told my wife, her reply to me was something like, “You are a strange man.”  Yes I am!  As one of my amputee friends told me, “People just can’t understand how weird phantom pain is until they experience it.”  I’m hoping you never have to.