360 Degrees

Wednesday, July 12, 2011

A few months ago I posted a status expressing gratitude by writing something like “hallelujahhhh” and the song “Jehovah Jireh.” I didn’t elaborate, but I would like to now.

Until recently, I lived with chronic pain for nearly 14 years. I was about 19 when I, in the presence of my mom, complained to the doctor about pain in my jaw. He took my head, turned it from side to side, looked at me and told me I was okay. It was terribly irresponsible. In retrospect, I’d even call it malpractice.

I’d never heard of TMJ, referred to now as TMD in the medical profession, but he must have. I spent a little over the next ten years trying to overcome it holistically; through diet, yoga, acupuncture and a lot of hope and faith that it would eventually go away. I learned more than I otherwise would have about health (like many people do when faced with a condition to overcome). Adversity is a great, if not the best, teacher.

Speaking of which, I managed to work as a teacher. When I think back I don’t even know how I did it. I was sober, too. I mean I didn’t even have a drink to relax. In fact that was one of the reasons I delayed seeing a doctor, again. I didn’t want to take medication. I was afraid of becoming addicted to drugs. It felt like I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, but I became weary of life.

It was debilitating and unbearable. On a scale of 1 to 10 it was a 10 almost every day. There wasn’t a time within this period that I didn’t feel discomfort. Sometimes it would form deep in the socket of my eye and stay there for days. It made everything I had to do extremely difficult. I didn’t do anything except what I had to; isolating myself from people and places.

The first doctor, after performing tests and finding no cause, put me on medication. I felt like I was on heavy drugs… Make a longer story short, we found two combinations that worked; a muscle relaxer together with an anti-depressant. The reason it worked was because the anti-depressant would keep me from becoming drowsy from the amount of muscle relaxer that it took to keep the pain under control.

About a year and a half ago, shortly after I moved to Michigan, I was out of the muscle relaxer for nearly 3 weeks for reasons that I won’t go into, unless anyone wants to know. The anti-depressant alone did nothing for the pain. I was racked with it the evening I went to see a young woman I’d recently discovered, an excellent blues guitarist, perform at a venue about 30 minutes from where I live. I deliberated going mainly because I didn’t have a designated driver. I knew I would want to drink in place of the muscle relaxer so that I could enjoy the show. It took too much alcohol to ease the pain. I was embarrassingly intoxicated by the time I left - getting (regretfully) behind the wheel of my vehicle.

I was at a gas station when the police approached me. Someone had made a call… My vehicle matched the description. I cooperated – up to a certain point. I got out of my handcuffs, twice, for no reason other than because I could and it gave me a sense of control in a situation where I had none. One of the three officers handling me broke and, as a result, deformed my finger putting the pair of child cuffs on me the last time (I have thin wrists).

Anyways, upon the suggestion of doctors, I went to see a dentist about the pain earlier this year. He made me a type of a retainer that I wear nightly and throughout the day. I feel like it saved my life. It isn’t clear what causes TMD. It is more common in women than in men. My bite somehow shifted. Each time I chewed, thus, it was wreaking havoc. The solution was unexpectedly, though not surprisingly, simple. I slowly eliminated the medication and as of recently I am free of both – pain and medication.

I have to attend AA, weekly, as part of the consequences of the OWI charge. The first time I went, when it was my turn to share, I talked about the Lord’s Prayer. It was only in the last five years that it occurred to me the Lord is the Bread in the context of it (Luke 11:11). I’d always thought of it as the kind that we eat as part of a sandwich. Therefore I consider it a revelation; one that I am most pleased to share with others but especially with people struggling with self-control. (Luke 5:31)

I was the last person to share at that first meeting. We ended, to my pleasant surprise, by standing to hold hands and pray the Lord’s Prayer together. I felt so blessed and honored for the opportunity to share the revelation just prior to, “Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. ” It made it all worth it…