My recent posts have had several intentions.

Many friends on list and off have been living with pain.  I spent a
lifetime of pushing through all kinds of obstacles including pain and
fear.  Pain pushed back, stopped me completely.  Now when friends tell
me they're in pain I listen patiently and offer comfort.  I don't
lecture them about their attitudes.  I don't deny them or myself.  I
don't try to evade their pain and avoid my fear of what may happen to me
because it already has.

My friends have positive attitudes and terrific humor.  The also have a
solid grasp of reality.  Most struggle through and with their pain to
keep their lives working, hold demanding jobs, parent children or
care-give aging parents.  Their positive attitudes and good humor did
not keep them from pain and ailing.

When I came back on the List I said I'd tell more about myself.  I've
emphasized this aspect because it is my "reality", a secondary (spinal
cord injury) disability which has become more disabling than the primary
(CP) yet which seems related to conditions and vulnerabilities of my CP
body.  That a work related injury precipitated physical trauma and a
fourteen-year struggle to regain health is circumstantial, but fortunate
given the expenses and my inability to gain sufficient health to resume
employment.

The original course of my illness took a good seven years to evolve with
increasing chronic pain until my cervical spinal cord started to go.  My
difficulties started at age 46 and took a significant job related injury
to induce.  Given the exertions of my everyday life and what I now know,
my body may well have succumbed to injury or fallen apart another way.
I had no knowledge or warning that I (and other CP's) was going to
experience chronic pain and possible spinal cord problems.  The first
seven years post injury were treated primarily as orthopedic.  While the
treatments had limited success in reducing and containing pain, spasms,
severe twitching, muscle lock, etc., they ultimately proved futile.


I hope is you keep my story in mind, start to rethink CP, and press your
doctors for more thorough exams.  You don't need to collapse like me.

ISM
"Stranger in a Strange Body"



-----Original Message-----
From: St. John's University Cerebral Palsy List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Karen K. Perlow
Sent: Friday, November 10, 2000 10:18 PM
Subject: Re: Positive Thinking (formerly "Implications of CP on Aging,
etc .")

In a message dated 11/10/2000 7:31:20 PM Central Standard Time,
[log in to unmask]
writes:

<<  maybe i am
 misunderstanding what is being said. if i am, i appologise, but, my
pains
 are not in my head and that is how i have been taking the remarks >>

Ken,

    I don't think any part of CP is in your head.The aches & pains are
very
real , especially for those of us who aren't young anymore.From my
recent
posts, you know that I understood the message Steve was trying to get
across.
I think the point that some are trying to make is that a positive
attitude
makes it easier to push through the pain.Heck it makes everything in
life
easier.I would never discount the effects of aging on us CPers & I am
willing
to bet others won't either when age catches up with them..:) It'll be
what
Oprah Winfrey calls "a lightbulb moment".

Karen :)