I don't know how some of you can keep from giving up with some of the stuff you have to live with. I guess one don't know how strong one is until you have to deal with a bad accident or some kind of bad disease. I think because I have had clinical depression since I was about 8 years old its harder for me to keep going, I say this not as a excuse but as a compairison to my little sis who has had chrone's disease [sp] since high school and has had many surgerys and has to live on a feeding tube for months at a time but she is almost always in good spirits I envy her for that, I have tried about every antidepression med and went through the ECT treatments, [will never do those again,] I still have memory problems since those treatments and did not help depression, finally my psyc dr put me on a very old med that can have very bad side effects but for me it has worked great and no bad side effects, sure beats being in hospital psyc ward under suicide watch which I have been many times until going on this med. This is probably more than people want to read on a forum like this but so many of you have made me glad I started this tread. If we all got together and raced they would have to let us really deep stage to cut a light with all the pain meds slowing our reaction times down:laugh: maybe the winner could get a couple free trips to the dr or something, LOL. I guess one needs a sence of humor some days just to cope. Tom W
just remember know matter how bad it is for you, me, anyone of us there is always someone out there that needs more then we need. or is in trouble more then we are. or is sicker and needs thoughs doctors more then we do. ; - )
Tom, I take Lexapro to fight depression associated with MS and the side effects of the treatment. I have tried some of the other meds, but Lexapro actually seems to work. And it doesn't have any side effects that bother me. Maybe you have already tried it, but it has worked for me. I have always been a very active person and MS has slowed me down. Since my accident in April, it has really affected my lifestyle. All you can do is keep doing what you feel you can, push yourself a little further, and keep smiling. I have a good attitude on life since there is nothing I can do about it anyway. Brian
I take Parnate for my depression. It is a very old MAOI med and has a special diet to go with it because of possible food reactions that can cause blood pressure to go sky high. I had to carry a antidote with me at all times at first till I found out if I would be OK on it. It is also real bad for reactions with other meds so it really limits what other meds I can take, I can't even take a cold or flu med on this stuff. A small price to pay to keep depression in check. Clinical depression can be harder to live with than the pain when it gets bad. Tom W
Hey Tom I don't know what your spiritual beliefs are or aren't, but I just wanted to let you know I'm sending prayers and healing energy your way. And I agree, make an appointment with Dr. Belville here in Oshkosh. He's the best chiropractor in the area. We missed you at KK on Saturday.
Sounds like that is some heavy duty stuff, Tom. I hope it all works out good for you. I hate having to inject myself daily, but the Copaxone had the least chance of side effects. Some of my other injection choices were like once every week or two, but they all had some nasty side effects. Severe depression and suicidal tendencies were some of them. Thankfully I do not have those problems. Take care, Brian
I just want to thank everyone for posting in this tread, I was scared to bring up such stuff at first but I am glad I did. Like someone said we don't have much we can do but try to do what we can and enjoy what we can do. My Buick and drag racing is all that I have left to do from my single days and when I still had the ability to work. I have had this same car since 1993 I think, it didn't even have a motor or trans in it when I got it. I stuck in a low compression totaly stock 455 and ran 14:90s on street tires and now I am up to a best of 11:31 doing all the work myself. It was nice working in a engine machine shop a few years so I could do all my own machine work on the motor Its had the same basic shortblock in it since about 1996, I had to rering it and put bearings in it one time because I lost a fan belt on a run and didn't notice until it was to hot and killed the rings. I have had the 105A cam in it also since 1996 took a while to learn what it likes but I think it runs pretty good for a pump gas home ported car. I don't think it has the raw HP of some others but with tuning and a good track it is real good to the 1/8th mile. I keep gaining ET but my MPH has been the same for a few years now, it would run 115 at 11:80s and the last time down the track it went 11:31 at still 115mph. Mabe this winter I will pull a head and see if Jim W can flow test it for me so I can see how bad my home port job is. He might even get a good laugh out of seeing how screwed up they are:grin: just kiding. Tom
I've gotta tell ya, I've never paid attention to whether or not I rest my head back or lean forward when I launch my car! You've got me curious, so next time out, I'm gonna have to concentrate on remembering just what I do with my head. It's a pretty brutal launch (just the way I like it!), but I have an extremely high backed aluminum Kirkey seat with a padded cover, so it's not like I'm gonna whack my melon on anything hard! Regarding the chronic pain issue.....I was in a very bad motorcycle accident 20 years ago. Almost got killed. An old lady backed out of her driveway right in front of me and I slammed into the side of her car at about 45 mph. I smashed my left ankle to smithereens, dislocated my left hip from the socket, and fractured two vertabrae as I was launched into the air. Spent a month in the hospital, 6 months laid up at home. Six ankle surgeries later, I was left with a large, scarred, fused ankle and a cranky back. 12 years ago, I was in a car accident and tore up my right knee. Got arthritus in that and then re-injured it last year when the bus I was driving for work, was broad-sided and flipped over onto it's side. It's a good thing I'm immortal, or I'd be dead a few times already!:laugh: The screwed-up way I walk makes my back act up....If I'm on my feet a lot today, my ankle swells up and I limp tomorrow. Limping bothers my back as well as my bad knee, and so it goes. If that wasn't enough, I'M FAT!! That certainly isn't helping my wrecked body any. I'm just thankful I am an extremely positive person, without a hint of depression (so far), because I've seen that up close and I know what you guys are going through. Take Care, Doug.
Those who have been in the military may recognize this saying... My best R. L. Ermy voice "Pain is weakness leaving the body!!!". If that's true I must be one weak S.O.B. My lower back is soo F-ed up, I can only work on the Buick about once every two to three weeks. Actually that may explain why I never get anything done around here...ou: ou: ou:
wow, my back hurts just reading some of these threads, esp. the one from the man who got hit by the semi truck, ouch ! i am no doctor, but after i got hurt on the job, i could barely walk for 5 years, the pain was so bad, and the doctors wouldnt give me anything that would help, just a bunch of M&M's that made my gut hurt, it was so bad that i seriously considered shooting myself in the leg figuring they would have to do something then. well, i'm glad i didnt do that, but hey, desparate people do desparate things. anyways, for those of you who have muscle pains, and have been heavy smokers for years, QUIT ! one day i just quit smoking, and after a few months my back got much better. it may take a few months to feel better, but i am convinced that quitting smoking did more for me than all the specialists, pills, MRI's, and nerve blocks ever did, and it was the one thing that saved me money instead of costing me money. that was two years ago, now i can walk ok, but i did just light up another camel. doh. HTH henry
Hello Doug, Its cool you answered my post. I have never seen your car in real life but have learned alot about it on these forums, I think it is a neat car. I have also been folowing the "grudge" racing with the other high 8 sec car, sorry I don't remeber there names off hand. I hear you on not knowing where arms and legs and things are when racing, I know I can't tell you if I hold my brake foot above brake pedal all the way down the track or put it on the floor, [I foot brake from the line], I also can't say where I have my hand on the wheel either. If I did put some kind of head support in it will take me forever to get used to useing it. I think first I will try one of those things that go on shoulders and hold bottom of helmet. I see you have more than your share of bad luck with accidents, the only bad accicent I have had was when I went off the road with my nice clean 89 GMC 4X4 and could not get it stopped and was forced to hit a tree head on at about 45 MPH and the shoulder part of the seat belt didn't catch and I took out the steering wheel with my face, I dam near ripped my nose off, I broke it in 2 places and pulled the skin apart under my nose and above my lip, had to have some stiches there. I now have some problems breathing through my nose and my sence of smell is all goofy. Needless to say the tree came out the best on the deal, I got knocked out a bloody mess and the poor truck didn't have a straight piece left on it, but it never broke any of the glass. I did manage to take the smaller tree on the passanger side instead of the big tree on my side, I had no room to get past the trees so I didn't have much of a choice. All because I because I took my eye off the road for a sec with the criuse on. Tom
Tom, I feel your pain(pun intended) when I was in the Air Force as a mechanic I fell off of an F-4 Phantom and compressed my spine, in 1998 they finially figured out that it had turned into degenerative athritis. It led to a discharge after 13 years in, I got severance pay(thats all gone now) and all I get from the VA is about $100 a month in disability. I am in pain every day and there are some days I can't walk, I worked on my Yamaha yesterday and am paying the price for that today. I refuse to quit doing the things that I love, like working on the cars and bikes, it takes me longer now but I still like doing it so I still do it! I do wish I was in a better position money wise, I have an ok job that I like but working at $9.50 an hour I'm never going to get rich and I have no retirement plan. I've fought depression for many years both with and without medication for it, currently I'm without meds, I've found that the motorcycles help me out mentaly alot. There is alot of stuff that I can't do now that I once could...but more importantly there is alot that I still CAN do! Try to keep that in mind and if you ever need to talk about it you know where to find me!
I havn't tries SS yet, what I'm actually getting from the VA is about $206 a month, I'm considered 10% disabled for my back and 10% for other stuff, the check I recieve is for the other stuff and what I get for my back is being held as recoupment for the severance pay I recieved from the Air Force, so when that $96 a month reaches the $32,000 that I recieved as severance pay I'll start getting that as a check too.....don't you love the government!
Man that don't sound right. They gave severance pay and now you got to pay it back because you get disablity, for something that happen will in duty statis. Go talk to your sentator about this. It smells fishy
ou: Hi, last Monday I tried to help some friends drive in a shallow well, I have never seen this type of well before, It is a pipe with a point on it and screened holes in the first section for water to get in the pipe. We started with a electric hammer [same thing you would use to break up concrete] only with a different end for driving pipe, anyways the hammer died so we went to a hand driver my stepdad has for doing this, like a dummy I tried to do my part and pound some by hand, dum dum dum, My wrists and hands are so sore I can hardly work the tv remote and pulled the muscles in my lower tummy. Just because I wanted to do my part with this deal my car had to sit another week because I was to sore to work on getting the roll bar done. I don't understand why I do such things knowing it will dam near kill me when I am done. I guess I need to get my prioritys straight again, drag racing above all else:laugh: The worst part is we got it about 15 feet down and hit a big rock so after beating ourselves up doing this we had to pull it all back up and tried a different spot we tried 4 more times and would go so far and fit something at the same depth each time, it is real sandy soil and it goes real easy till it hits what ever is down there, must be a layer of some kind of stone down there because the last time we moved about 15 feet from the other 4 tries and still hit rock and broke the point off the pipe the last time, I was kinda glad it did break we were all running out of power after driving it in 5 times and having to pull it all back out with my cherry picker engine engine hoist. The next time I do something so dumb would one of you kick me and tell me to sit and watch lol. Sorry to bore all of you with my dumb story, but I would not be to suprised to hear of some of you doing something you know you shouldn't when you feel half way decent. If I had known what I was getting into I never would have said I would help. Learn something new every day I guess. Tom
Tom, I've been in your shoes lots of times. You know you shouldn't do certain things, but being a guy, you don't want to look and feel like a wimp in front of your friends and family. So you do it anyway and pay the price later. Not to hijack your thread, but I just found out that because my insurance changes at the end of the month I have to go out to Denver for another major surgery, hopefully the last, ASAP. I'm heading out next week. It's been very hectic as I originally planned to have this done in October. Unfortunatly I can't risk waiting for work comp to get figured out and my wifes insurance won't cover out of state procedures so I have to shotgun this ASAP. Hopefully after this surgery I will finally be pain free, God willing.
Living with the pain is without a doubt very uncomfortable. i was laid up for 2 weeks once and couldn't even move, boy did i feel helpless, so i know what your going through. I have a fellow employee that is only 19 years young and he has the back of 45 year old man , well that's what his Dr. tells him. Apparently his disc are smashed together from riding his utility vehicles without any type of shocks, from what they gather. I feel your pain, and for all you's guy's and gal's that have never had it you should wake up smiling every morning. Once again your not alone and we're here for ya!:TU:
MPRY1 , First thanks for the articles. I am going to talk it over with my personnel MD. I have good one, the specialist never again!! My prayers go with you and a safe return. 72GSX I know how hard it is to set on the side lines and watch. I have had to teach my wife how to do alot of things that I should be doing. I am so glad I have a wife that is willing to take up my slack. It really hurts and some times that pain is graeter and I do the things that lay me up for days or weeks.
Don't worry about hijacking this tread, I am glad that this tread has got so much responce, I at first thought that people would read my first post and think I was goofy and nothing would come of it. Also things move so fast on this bench forum that unless you check a few times a day topics can get pushed off the page real fast and get missed. Mike, I hope your surgery turns out good and don't get stuck with huge bills for it. We got the bill for the last injection in my back and it was over $700 just to talk to DR and get the shot. My wife had to change jobs and insurance and of coarse all the DRs we were used to are not on the new plan so we have to go through the deal of finding new DRs we like again or pay alot more to see or old DRs. It never seems to end, always something comes up to mess things up worse than they already were. Like the old saying goes, "when it rains it pours". Tom
