I live with pain each and every day. I have lived with pain for the past twenty years or so. I have congenital chorea and recently I found out I have bulged discs in my back and arthritis.

I was always able to tolerate the pain up until this past November. In November, I woke up one morning and could hardly walk. I was in so much pain. I couldn't believe it. However, it was a work day, so off to work I went. Once at work though, the pain was just unbearable. I couldn't stand it. I went home.

Now, one thing about me and work is, for the past four years that I have worked at my present job I very rarely took time off work. I would work in pain and just deal with it. However, this pain was not something I could just forget about and put to the back of my mind. I mean, I could not walk.

I went to work two days later. I was still in a lot of pain but I had to have an income too. Then, the same thing happened at the first of December. I went to work and could not walk so, home I went again.

I went to emergency and was given some percaset for the pain and they also did an xray. I stayed home the next day but back to work I went again the day after that.
With the percaset, I was ripped right out of my tree. The pain subsided a bit but I couldn't handle the feeling I had with the percaset. I stopped taking it. I think I either have an allergy to most medication or my system just can't take it.

The end of January came along and the same thing happened again only this time the pain was the worst I have ever had. I went to the clinic again. This time they gave me a requisition to have an xray done.

About a week after I had the xray done, I got a call saying that they had seen something on the xray. They wanted me to have a cat scan done because they couldn't tell exactly what was going on.

The cat scan was a joke because it took me three tries because of my congenital chorea, I shake really bad. At the end of March I finally got it done after they had to knock me out to do it.

While I was waiting for the cat scan to be done, I was put on all kinds of different medication. Novoproxin gave me nose bleeds and chest pain and with tremacet, I was again ripped out of my tree.

Because I have congenital chorea, which is a nerve, muscle disorder, I have to be in control of my system as much as possible. The pills I was taking took that control away from me and I just didn't like it.

The cat scan I had done showed that my discs were bulged and that I had arthritis. Unfortunately there is not much that can be done about that and I can't take pain pills for it so I'm kind of stuck in pain.

Some days I can get around pretty good and do the housework, cooking and dishes. Other days, I am in so much pain that I can't do much of anything. I don't know what is in store for me for the future but I can see pain there for sure. However, I will not let my pain stop me from enjoying the rest of my life.