Re: Please Help, I'm Desperate

From: Jo Eslick (joanne@bombobeach.com)
Tue Feb 19 01:59:19 2002


Hello Nicole,

I am sorry that you are hurting so much and are feeling so desperate. I certainly remember how that feels, it seems like only a few weeks ago that I found this site(it's actually a whole year!). It has changed my whole out look and attitude to pain and to adhesions.

As you know Nicole, I live in Australia and our medical system is vastly different to the one offered to you. If I have pain in the middle of the night I can ring MY doctor and either meet her(or the doctor on call in the same practice, they take turns) at the office, or if I am too ill to leave the house, the doctor comes to me!

So one of the things I wanted to do for my internatioanal friends while also addressing my fellow Australians on how we can gain the best medical attention for our condition.... was to address the issue of coping. So I created "How to Cope" section, designed to be an instant get help quick guide when there isn't anyone in the chat room.... the chat room will eventually have one or two people in there most hours of the day or night....we will be able to do that because we all live in different time zones!

Natalie, I really believe that it is up to each of us to take care of ourselves, and you have started to do that by finding your way here to the adhesions board. To all the new people who have found this site in the last few weeks, but are still too shy to let us know you are watching.... to you I want to say, that's OK too.

The internet is a scarry place if you are not familiar with it. When I first started posting messages on the board, I used my guide leader name (Girl Scouts in the States) because I was terrified that someone from my home town would find this site and read my posts!

If you look through the archives you will see my original posts under the name of "wally" at wallamara@hotmail.com I now realise that by being open and honest about my pain, by asking questions, researching and reading countless pages of information I now have the confidence to be an active participant in my treatment. (The local Women's Health Care centre in my home town, were very excited to discover my website and have asked me to provide an article for their next newsletter :-))

Everyone has these sorts of decisions to make too, so I applaud you and others who will read this post for taking the initiative to look for answers to your questions of why me? How? When? What?......

So Natalie I invite you again, perhaps you did look at my site before, but I invite you to have another look at the Australian Adhesions Site, and see if one of the suggestions in the "How to Cope" pages can help you .... perhaps just give you a little more control over your pain.

To illustrate to you how helpful "diversion therapy" can be, before visiting this site today, I was chatting with my dear friend Helen Chalmers, who is one of our regulars... I have affectionately dubbed her helly belly, and she was in a bad way .... it was in the middle of the night for her, everyone else in the house was asleep. So helly was feeling very anxious because she had taken her pain medication and was still experiencing scale 10 pain.

So, we started with the breathing exercise and I "talked her through it".... this exercise is outlined in the "how to cope" section of http://www.bombobeach.com ... So by doing this breathing exercise, Helly had firstly put additional oxygen into her blood, which helps to slow her breathing which then helps her muscles to relax. After helly had used the breathing for a while she started feel calmer and so I decided that I would take helly for a walk along the beach, this exercise is called visualisation and this takes a lot of concentration: which takes your mind off your pain.

Well, helly and I started our walk and we got off the hot dry sand quickly because it was burning our feet and we made it to the edge of the water and we could feel the firmness of the wet sand and the water was tickling our toes..... we were just starting to see the breakers as they rolled towards the beach and also just starting to hear the booming crash of the waves through to the sizzley sound as the waves climb up to the shoreline and reached our toes.....we were having a lovely time...I had started to here the seagulls harking above us...and smell.....when helly broke in and said that it had taken her mind in a completely different direction....reminiscing about her youth.......... the spell was broken, the beach forgotten.

It didn't matter though, because we then had a very typically hilarious chat, and we even had Sally Grigg's company for a little while. The result Natalie? Not only did helly laugh & laugh....which released the body's natural morphine (the chemical endorphines are released from the brain) and helly relaxed enough to dose off in the middle of our chat. When we first started talking...she was laying awake in bed, worried about what this spreading and horrible pain meant... determined NOT to go to the ER....to feeling relaxed enough to snooze!

Natalie, I don't know it all, and just because this worked for helly, and it works for me, doesn't guarantee that it will work for you... BUT ... one of my favourite sayings is: IF YOU DON'T GIVE IT A GO.... YOU WILL NEVER NEVER KNOW.... so why not experiment and find ways that help you get your pain under control? The "Beach Club" chat room will also a great place to find some company, sympathy, friendship and I hope FUN!!

Keep looking for a Competent surgeon, the diversional therapies just might help you get through the waiting time there seems to always be between making the appointment and it actually arriving.......

If when you start to look at ways to help you cope... if you experiment and find something that isn't mentioned, please let me know! You can send me a private email, or post a message here on the adhesions board or on the bombobeach note pad. :-) I hope these suggestions help you Natalie... I can't help you find a doctor but I can be your friend and help you cope while you continue to search.... the same goes for any and everyone who reads this message.

My thoughts, prayers, love and gentle hugs to everyone, Jo Eslick Aussie Adhesions Sufferer http://www.bombobeach.com

--
I am not a medical person, and all my messages are based
on personal experience.  I am a fellow adhesions sufferer
reaching out to help others.

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