The two poems, Pain and A Sudden Change in Life,  were written at a time when I crashed and burned- I had hit bottom and then some.  My wife Jill had gone to Atlanta for a week, and I was home alone at a time when I was too fragile to be left alone. It was just a week full of one mishap after another, which just compounded things. Besides the pain factor, I've been dealing with amazingly strong and non-stop spasms. I was really locked up one day, and I could barely move. 

    I decided to head to a local forest preserve and go for a walk on the jogging trails to try to loosen my body up a bit. I was about one and a half miles into the cruise when I had a "grabber"- The neck pops (And I mean POPS- my wife can hear it when she's upstairs) and when it does, the bones in my neck shift and they slam into nerves, or this is the best description I can give. It knocks the wind out of you- it drops you on your face, and all you can do is wait till the spasms finally calm down before you can even think about moving a muscle. It took about an hour and a half before I could start the slow process of getting to an upright position, which is really a drag to go through- you can't help the screaming.

    I had managed to flop onto the weeds alongside the paved pathway, about three feet from the edge.. face down in the weeds, wishing I was dead at the time. It was the worst flare-up I have ever had to date. I just laid there screaming and sobbing, I couldn't handle it at all, it was too intense. I've heard the phrase "blinding pain" before, but this time I experienced it. In all the time I was lying there, at least a hundred people walked, jogged, bicycled, and skated by. Not *one* person stopped to see if I needed any help. Granted, there's not a whole heck of a lot that anyone could actually *do* to help, other than call an ambulance or something. Not that calling someone would help- nothing short of Morphine even begins to dull the pain at all. I laid there for an hour and a half and no one cared. No one. I was passed by by a hundred people within reaching distance, and no one stopped. Never in my life had I ever felt so lonely, abandoned, or broken hearted. It was as if I was an animal that was hit by a car and left to suffer and die........  

    In an instant, I had been reduced to a purely primitive life form, like a wounded animal left to die, the rest of the herd traveling ahead, not looking back to check up on the animal that was suffering. The herd had to continue on. There is no other comparison that I can come up with... The reality of my situation became frighteningly clear that day- in the grand scheme of things, my life means nothing to this world. Nothing.  

    Eventually, I was finally able to stand and I headed back to the car. It took another two hours to get back to the car...I kept having grabber after grabber all the way back, and I hit the deck again with each one. It took a long time of careful maneuvering to get myself into the car, and I finally headed for home. I pulled into the driveway and started the slow process of getting out of the car, and another monster grabber hit.  I heard my ribs make a cracking sound as it stopped me dead in my tracks again. A neighbor was going to her car, saw me struggling,  and came over. She was able to help ease me out of the car so I could head inside. She asked if there was anything she could do, and I asked if she could try to pull my shoulders back into place to try to get my ribs to re-seat where they should be. When these grabbers hit, they have dislocated ribs, popped my shoulders out of socket, etc.
A rubdown of the muscles in my neck and shoulder was needed badly. "No problem...I'll be over in a little while". I grabbed the hot packs, did a lot of deep breathing,  and tried to get everything to mellow out.  But she never came back over, she never called. Abandoned again...

Fade to next day....

    I never got a chance to sleep... it was impossible even after pounding down the sleeping meds that I was prescribed. I gave another friend of ours, a former exercise instructor to see if Dave and she could swing by and try to stretch these monster spasms out for me. "Sure.. no problem". Well....they never showed either. I spent another night without sleep. I hit rock bottom depression, depths I've never known before, and I needed to talk to someone badly. My mind was entertaining things that I even hate to admit to thinking, and I was getting a really dangerous feeling inside my head. I called everyone I knew, every single one was too busy.... they had to wash the car, the ballgame's on, etc...all the way down the line. I cried until I run out of tears. They're too busy to take any time for me.. tail spin, out of control. Abandoned feeling, unwanted by the world, invisible to people as they almost had to step over me in the lying in the dirt. It was a dark day....

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