Failed back syndrome

Doctors have a name for chronic pain that can result from spinal surgery.  They call it Post-Laminectomy Syndrome, though the common and more descriptive terminology is Failed Back Syndrome.   This is a condition in which damage to the spinal nerve produces sciatic pain, which is realized, in the case of my mother, as a sustained sensation of burning or stabbing in her right foot.  She has suffered from this debilitating pain for many years, though the last eight have been the worst. 

My father died in August of 2003.  At that point my mother’s pain medication was entering her bloodstream through a small pump implanted in her abdomen.  When this method began to make her ill, she was switched to oral medications and within months was taking ninety milligrams of morphine sulphate daily.  Except on bad days, when she had the prerogative of a “break through” pill that was 10mg.  She could take up to three of these smaller doses in addition to her other allotment if her need was particularly severe.  But often nothing was adequate to quell her screaming pain.  So her solution was to self-medicate.  For a year or more, she added copious amounts of vodka and diet tonic to her regimen of pills.  And then she switched to white wine.  Chardonnay. 

About three years ago my mother developed a pattern of drinking to excess and then falling down. She sustained minor injuries at first.  A sprained ankle, a bump on her head.  And then it got worse.  She broke her elbow and then her ankle.  Or maybe the ankle came first, I can no longer remember.  We all tried to convince her that her behavior was compromising her independence.  Promises would be made.  And then broken.  We offered solutions.  She turned everything down.  Her support systems began to waiver and weaken.  Her family was confused and angry.  Her friends, who were justifiably frustrated, stopped calling and dropping by.   She sank more deeply into her loneliness and depression.  The cycles got shorter.  Rather than having three or four months between problems, we got down to just three or four weeks between visits to the emergency room.  At this point, she relented, initially agreeing to therapy and then, after a few months, to moving.  We put her house up for sale, we located a counselor that she actually seemed to like and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief.  But failure loomed.

Yesterday, as I sat by my mother’s bed, I watched a familiar scene.  She lay there, dressed in the soft blue that compliments her eyes, grimacing and moaning in pain.  Conversation was disjunctive.  “87?  Are you talking about Marj?” she would ask, apropos to nothing I had actually said.  Or angrily, “No, not mashed potatoes.  Potatoes that are mashed!!!”  It was not easy to be with her.  It is not easy to witness her pain and confusion.  It is far too easy to see her current life, in which she is dependent, hurting, and unmoored, as simply cruel.