Dealing with chronic pain
Pain is the constant companion she's learned to live with.
Linda Wilhelm has rheumatoid arthritis. First diagnosed in 1983 she thought it couldn't get any worse. She was wrong. Over time her muscles continued to deteriorate. By 1999 she was in a wheelchair and in constant agony.
"I didn't sleep a full night in three or four years."
The fatigue lead to more pain, depression and self-isolation. By age 38 she underwent a total hip replacement. For the next five years, every six months, she had more surgeries, joint replacements and fusions.
Now only one elbow, one ankle and one hip are hers. The rest of her joints are artificial.
She is like the Bionic Woman, she jokes.
But this is no joking matter.
"And I have a six-inch plate in my neck. You should see me trying to go through airport security."
After a second knee replacement, her pain started to ease somewhat.
Then came the long and difficult journey of learning to walk again.
"It took about a year-and-a-half. I pushed myself. Walking to the bathroom was a victory."
Now 47, Wilhelm is still in pain but she has learned to live with it instead of fighting it.
"People who've never had to deal with pain probably wouldn't be able to live with the amount of pain I live with. But it is nothing compared to the amount of pain I was in."
To help keep her pain at a level she can tolerate she makes sure she exercises daily.
"I walk every day for 45 minutes. If I don't I start to feel more sore and my mental outlook changes. I don't feel as well."
Wilhelm understands why chronic pain sufferers hate to move. It is a struggle to make yourself want to exercise when your body hurts, she says.
"I remember when they (doctors) told me 'You have to exercise' but I used to think what are you talking about? It's easy for you to tell me I have to exercise but you don't know what I'm going through."
The New Brunswick Arthritis Society helped her to learn to manage her disease through exercise and to better understand what was happening to her body.
For the past eight years Wilhelm has volunteered with the organization. Now she helps others understand the disease and teaches them how and why exercise helps to manage pain.
"Somehow you've got to find the strength get up and move. It may only start with five minutes a day you move.
"For everybody it's different. For some people it's swimming, for me, walking works."
So much has changed in Wilhelm's life over the last nine years.
When she was at her worst, she recalls, she was very weak and unable to do anything for herself, her three children or her husband.
"I was maybe 100 pounds and I was completely wasting away. I would have been in long-term care if it weren't for my husband. He did everything. I know a lot of women whose husbands couldn't handle it and walked out."
Now, Wilhelm says, she feels stronger and is living a happy, fulfilling life. Those who live with chronic pain need to understand it and accept it, she says.
"When you accept it you begin to look to the future. It entails moving on with your life and not allowing the pain to be the whole focus of your life. The more you dwell on it the more pain you have."
Wilhelm also relies on pain medications to help her cope. Rating her pain on a scale of one-to-10, she describes hers today at about a six.
"I am really conscious of when I take pain medication. I take it when my pain is at about a seven-and-a-half out of 10. It helps me sleep and it helps me to keep exercising."
Hers is an extreme case. But Wilhelm says no matter what causes a person's chronic pain, staying active and being faithful to exercise is key to learning to live with it.
"You can have a good, happy life living with pain and a full life. I do wish our health department would put more emphasis on helping people in chronic pain."
Wilhelm says staying active will help keep your muscles strong and protect your joints.
She would like to see the provincial health department do more to help people living with chronic, debilitating pain.
She acknowledges a government self-management program for chronic illness sufferers, scheduled for this fall, is a good start.
The program, called My Choices My Health, is designed to help people and their families deal with the challenges associated with chronic illnesses.
There are many issues chronic illness sufferers, and their families, must face.
Bronwyn Davies, director of primary health care for the health department, says this program is designed to help people acquire the tools they need to manage chronic illness.
"This program deals with the multi-faceted things that go on when you have chronic illness.
"Things like navigating the health care system, fitness and healthy eating, goal-setting, problem-solving, managing pain and fatigue, dealing with difficult emotions such as frustration and fear, techniques for reducing stress and anxiety and communicating effectively with your healthcare team."
This free, six-week program will be offered in various communities throughout the province. When it's over, Davies says, it's expected participants will become experts in illness self-management.
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