{"id":59,"date":"2019-02-05T07:37:52","date_gmt":"2019-02-05T14:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/painvalley.com\/?p=59"},"modified":"2020-03-04T20:03:56","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T03:03:56","slug":"living-with-chronic-pain-a-personal-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/?p=59","title":{"rendered":"Living with CHRONIC PAIN: A Personal Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Living<\/a><\/h1>\n

Welcome to \u201cLiving With Chronic Pain!\u201d\u00a0 As a new blogger at PsychCentral, I wanted to take a beat to properly introduce myself and tell you a little bit about how I became a Chronic Pain blogger.<\/p>\n

First and foremost, I must say that it is an honor to be writing for PsychCentral\u2026as a Licensed Social Worker (LSW), PsychCentral has been one of my go-to sites since graduate school, and being asked to host my own blog here is exciting.\u00a0 It\u2019s like asking a music professional to write for \u201cRolling Stone!\u201d In other words, for me, this is a big deal for me!<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A little about me:\u00a0 I am 33 years old and I am married to a patient and loving man who, when he said \u201cI Do\u201d to \u201cin sickness and in health,\u201d probably had no idea the \u201cin sickness\u201d part would happen so soon.\u00a0 \u00a0I also have an amazing lab mix named Coco, who has helped in my recovery in so many ways.\u00a0 Prior to becoming disabled I worked as an LSW in a nursing home. I loved my job and I love to help people. Since having two spinal surgeries, however, I am not able to work a 9-5 job.\u00a0 So now I am a freelance writer and a blogger.<\/p>\n

These past 2 years, the PAIN and FRUSTRATION have affected every area of my life.\u00a0 Living with chronic pain is difficult because there are many times I find myself having to smile through the tears and pretend I am handling everything with ease, when that is far from how I really feel.\u00a0 I should have won an Emmy by now for leading role as \u201cStable Disabled Woman Who Does It All.\u201d<\/p>\n

I will be writing about the many issues that accompany living with chronic pain, including its affect on moods, relationships, work, health, etc.\u00a0 This blog will be no-holds barred.\u00a0 It will be an honest (and hopefully sometimes humorous) look at how to live with chronic pain.<\/p>\n

As for the reason I live with chronic pain, it is\u2026complicated, to say the least.\u00a0 In short, I had an emergency hemilamenectomy in July of 2011 when I herniated a disc in my back and lost function in my right leg.\u00a0 During the recovery period, additional tests revealed that my lower spine (called the lumbar spine) was degenerating.\u00a0 So, seven months after the first surgery, I had an extensive, three-level spinal fusion.\u00a0 \u00a0Despite a lot of pain, a lot of PHYSICAL THERAPY and so many scans and X-rays that I have a glow to me, I have learned a lot about living with chronic pain and hope that I can share some of that with you.<\/p>\n

Please feel free to comment and share your stories and I look forward to our journey together!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to \u201cLiving With Chronic Pain!\u201d\u00a0 As a new blogger at PsychCentral, I wanted to take a beat to properly introduce myself and tell you a little bit about how I became a Chronic Pain blogger. First and foremost, I must say that it is an honor to be writing for PsychCentral\u2026as a Licensed Social […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-59","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pseudogout","tag-dbtag"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103,"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions\/103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}