Car Trip and Fear

My FIL (Father-in-law), whom I love a great deal, has been having chest pain episodes. So far blood work shows no heart attacks, just the chest pain. During these episodes his blood pressure drops as does his pulse. DH and I are very worried. So we will be going up to Indiana to see him. We're leaving Wednesday evening and should be back on Sunday. It's about a 12 to 14 hour drive (depending on number of stops). With my doctors' new stance of "We're not going to do anything else for you, you're going to have to learn to live with it." I am terrified. This drive always kills me and the first 24 to 48 hours I am there, I am in bed most of the time. Usually I can then join in a bit. But now, I'm stuck in bed most of the time every day and I don't know what I'm going to do. We'll only be there 4 days. I would feel like crap if I had to spend most of those 4 days sitting in bed.

Even worse, our visit coincides with my DH's mom's side of the family's reunion. She passed away when DH was in his early 20's and he hasn't been to the reunion in many many years. (Military career) So we plan on attending that for a little while. It is set for Saturday and we're supposed to leave Sat. evening. So we'll go for an hour or two and then take naps and head home. I will be meeting most of his extended family members for the first time and I am so scared. They're all really wanting to see DH as well and I am so worried that if we have to leave earlier than we planned due to my back that people will be angry.

I could just scream at my doctors and the DEA for putting me in this position. For leaving me without adequate pain control. It was explained to me that adequate pain control is keeping one's pain at a 5 or lower. This is what my goal is. I'm not looking for pain free. I can function at a 5 or lower. But now, I wake at a 6-7 or higher and any activity raises that level with walking and standing being the worst. This leaves me unable to function. It sucks!

I am very afraid.

Withdrawal

I know I have been withdrawn for a while and I have tried not to be, but it is hard when I hurt so much, can't stand up and can't walk around or do anything.  When it is like that all I want to do is hide, lick my wounds (so to speak), and try to just get through each day's pain. I have been in bed for 3 months now. The radio frequency procedures for both sides of my lower back have been done, but I'm still having massive pain in both SI joints. An interesting new symptom has shown up and that is very sharp, very strong pain in the right SI joint. Usually I only have that level of pain in the left side (the broken joint) and the right side is a dull pain that only sharpens after a long period of time on my feet. Not anymore! Now, it is the sharp pain on the right that keeps me from standing for more than 3 minutes.

With the lowering of my pain medications by the lovely doctors, the wait for radio frequency, and now the discovery that they probably won't re-do the SI joint radio frequency, all I want to do is curl up and hide forever.

This sucks.