Chronic Pain: A Life Changer

Chronic Pain: A Life Changer My Story  
{Part 1}
This is my story, my accident, my personal struggle. I agree about how positive thinking can affect a person's mentality, but telling someone to always think positive when they might not know the nitty-gritty of it all can be very frustrating for the sufferer of pain, disease or illness. I hope that my own personal account of suffering with Chronic Pain will shed light and bring awareness to people. Help Me to get the word out there to the world!!!!


CRASH BOOM BANG CRUNCH!!!
All I see is two cars coming towards me. I can only think 'I'm gonna get hit, I'm gonna get hit'. My entire body went into complete shock mode. I gripped that steering wheel like there was no tomorrow. My next thought was 'Oh God what do I do?!?' I all of a sudden remembered what my Dad thought me about accidents, and tried my best to follow that.
Both cars were flying towards me. I felt so powerless to stop everything from happening. One car spun out and ended at the nose of my car parallel to me. The other car came barrelling towards me....towards my door, I knew right then that it was going to hit me directly...I was so terrified...It managed to skim right beside my door and hit the back passenger side, right by the gas tank, the car then went directly between my car and the car behind me (destroying the front end of the car behind me) and ripping my back bumper completely off. She ended up on the shoulder of the road.
The next thing I remember is looking around and I couldn't believe what just happened. Debris was everywhere, glass, metal , my bumper....
My first accident, Never thought it would happen to me. I've always been such a careful driver. But it did, it happened and it has changed my life forever.
I called my mom to tell her what happened, I called my amazing friend Jenn (who luckily happened to live just down the road) and told me to get to her house and have my mom pick me up from her house. She is such a great friend, once I got to her house and was telling her everything that happened, I was talking a mile a minute but she picked up on everything and was able to get me to calm down a bit. I was still extremely shaken up and freaking out but I was able to get a bit more calm, due to her. I owe a lot to her!!!

It has been 4 years 5 months and 13 days since it happened and it has been such a huge struggle to make it through. I have never experienced this kind excruciating pain before in my life.

My neck was stuck straight, I could not move it at all, it even hurt to think and blink. I could not move my arms from my body, I had to use my right hand to hold my left arm up and place me hand on the wall just to get dressed and put deodorant on. My back was in so much pain everywhere, it wasn't in just in one spot it was EVERYWHERE!!!. My lower back, middle of back, upper back, and base of my neck, it radiated all the way around to the sides of my body and my ribs(they felt as though they were going to explode). I had to walk with my knees bent because I could not stand up straight and walk, I couldn't bare any weight on my ankles and when I stood up it was very noticeable that I was leaning forward and to the right slightly. That was how horrible it was for about a year. I saw my doctor and he diagnosed me with a rotator cuff strain/sprain in my left shoulder (which made sense with me having to use my other arm just to support my left side when I got dressed and put deodorant on). However he couldn't figure out why my entire body was reacting the way it was.. meaning why it was all over my body. After close to the 6 week mark and after quite a few Physio sessions, still in horrible pain everywhere and not feeling any better was when my doctor diagnosed me with Chronic Pain....

Yup that's right...Chronic Pain.... All I could think of was....."Shit this sux!!!" and then "Now what?"......

Thanks for reading

~M~

Stay tuned to find out what the NOW WHAT is!! Its NOT pretty!!
In my upcoming BLOG, entitled: Chronic Pain: The Nitty-Gritty Truth (part 2)

Please: If you or someone you know is suffering with chronic pain please share your story, I would love to be able to meet more people who feel stuck and trapped like me, and to get the word out about chronic pain so that health care professionals and governments can get a REAL understanding of what it is truly like.


#ChronicPain on Twitter

Marine Land Trip 2014

Marine Land Trip

My family and I recently went to MarineLand in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. I was extremely excited to go simply because A: It was a family trip
                                               B: Haven't been there since I was a little girl
                                               C:Over the years I have heard some really bad press regarding the
                                                   the treatment of the animals at Marineland, so me being a huge
                                                   animal lover and animal advocate since I was a young girl. I
                                                   wanting to see the animals for myself.
We went on a Sunday, and it was not crazy busy there, so that is a bonus. There is a lot of walking around the park so if you plan on going, be prepared for that.
I am a huge advocate for people having the freedom of speech and opinion, so I went with an open mind.
1st: We saw the Dolphin, Bulga Whales, Seals and Wally the Walrus. It was jam-packed, The animals seemed to actually be happy, I know how that sounds, but I did not see anything physically wrong with them and they seemed to be happy to do a routine, all in all they put on a really good show, well trained and what looked like getting a lot of treats when before and after they performed. The tanks were bright blue-meaning the water is extremely clean.
2nd: We hit up the kids rides...a lot of adults were actually on the kids rides, a lot of the kids rides seemed to be based on the adult version of the ride. The rides were actually quite fun especially for kids, I think it makes them feel grown up in a way.
3:The food and drinks are a bit pricy, but the food that we did have was really good.

I saw that the water that the whales, bulgas, dolphins, seals, were in were really clean and big, I was surprised at how large the whales tank was, now it is not an ocean, no, however it is pretty big, same with the bulga's tank, quite large..
There is an extremely large area where you can go and feed Deer, that was so cool, they are surprising soft animals. Also you can go and feed the Bears. They have such a huge habitat.. its massive.

{The Deer Area is way bigger then in this photo}

 {Bears habitat goes far to the right also}

Giving people the chance to see these animals was great. I am not a fan of keeping wild animals and if it were up to me I would free every mammal, animal fish, sea creatures, however, being in Marine land and seeing where and how they are living, I do believe they are being well kept. For most of us, we have seen the news about Marine land. That news seems to be old news and it does seem like the animals are happy and healthy, from what I saw. If they were still doing things wrong....umm It would not be open {everyone would know that}.

PLEASE NOTE: I am only one person and I am entitled to my own voice and opinion, that being said I can not make a person change their thoughts, but I would encourage that anyone that has any doubts of Aquariums, Zoo's, Animal Parks, Animal Petting Zoo type places, to go and see them for yourself. Make your own judgement, DO NOT BASE HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT SOMETHING BECAUSE OF ONE PERSONS OPINION, OR BECAUSE HE/SHE MAY HAVE SAID SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Go and investigate it for yourself...Im not just meaning Marine Land but all Zoo{of all types}, Aquariums also....Please be your own judge about something!!!

I do not want to hear any nasty, negative, rude comments, I appreciate everyone's views and opinion, but when you start dropping nasty words, or name calling...that's NOT appreciated

Thank you for Reading!!
Remember....Be your OWN judge!!
~M~

These Photo's are mine, I took them and own them.

www.marinelandcanada.com