Alex
Administrator
Back home from hospital is not easy.
Many people think hard part is finished when you leave. Not true. Sometimes hard part only starts there. In hospital you have nurses, doctors, pills, routine, people around. At home it gets quiet very fast. Too quiet. Then it is just you, your body, your pain, and your thoughts.
For me that was rough time.
When I came out of hospital and rehab, I was on painkillers full on. Morning, day, night. Magic pills, yes. They kill pain, but they also start owning you little by little. At first you think you are taking them because you need them. Then one day you look and see they are running the whole show. That is bad place to be.
The stupid part was I still wanted some normal life feeling back. Simple thing. Just wanted to have a beer like before crash. But painkiller drugs and beer do not go together well. So there it was. Choice in front of me. Pills or beer. Drugs or some piece of old life. In the end, beer won.
Sounds funny maybe, but getting off painkillers was no joke.
It took about three weeks to break that addiction habit. Three long weeks. Sleep was wrecked. Body felt wrong. Mood was down in the dirt. Pain kicks came hard. Well-being was up to shit. Everything felt heavy and ugly. Day felt long. Night felt even longer. Not much glamour in that fight. Just one day, then next day, then next one. Rough work.
That is something people do not always understand. They see you back home and think now everything should be improving nicely. Nice little recovery story. But real life is messier than that. Body is damaged. Head is tired. Habits are twisted. You are trying to build normal life again with half-broken tools. Some days you feel strong. Some days you feel like complete wreck. That is the truth.
Still, I got through it.
Came out clean. No more painkiller addiction. That part was finished. Freedom at last. Real freedom too. Not big movie freedom. Just simple freedom. Clearer head. No pills running my day. Being able to have my beer any time I like and not feel chained to some tablet bottle. Small thing maybe for somebody else. Big thing for me.
Of course, that does not mean all pain packed its bags and left.
Phantom pain is still here. Still part of life. That special kind of stupid pain from arm that is not even there anymore. Hard thing to explain to normal people. They see missing arm and think story ended there. No. Story keeps going in nerves, in brain, in those weird sharp kicks that come from nowhere. Some moments more quiet. Some moments louder. But always somewhere around.
Nowadays I just take it as part of my life. Not because I like it. Because fighting reality every minute is even more tiring. Better to accept what is there and keep moving. So that is what I do. Live with it. Deal with it. Every moment of my great life.
Back home from hospital is not only body recovery. It is mind recovery too. Habit recovery too. Whole life recovery. Learning again how to sleep. How to think straight. How to do normal things. How to enjoy something small without feeling destroyed all the time. That part takes longer than people think.
But still, home is important.
Because home is where real life begins again. Not easy life. Not perfect life. But real one. You start making your own rules again. Your own routine. Your own small victories. Better sleep one night. Less pain one morning. One laugh. One beer. One normal moment. Those little things count a lot when you come back from hell.
So yes, back home from hospital can be hard as hell.
But it can also be beginning of freedom. Slow freedom. Painful freedom. Crooked freedom maybe. But still freedom.
And after all that, even one ordinary day starts feeling like something worth keeping.
Many people think hard part is finished when you leave. Not true. Sometimes hard part only starts there. In hospital you have nurses, doctors, pills, routine, people around. At home it gets quiet very fast. Too quiet. Then it is just you, your body, your pain, and your thoughts.
For me that was rough time.
When I came out of hospital and rehab, I was on painkillers full on. Morning, day, night. Magic pills, yes. They kill pain, but they also start owning you little by little. At first you think you are taking them because you need them. Then one day you look and see they are running the whole show. That is bad place to be.
The stupid part was I still wanted some normal life feeling back. Simple thing. Just wanted to have a beer like before crash. But painkiller drugs and beer do not go together well. So there it was. Choice in front of me. Pills or beer. Drugs or some piece of old life. In the end, beer won.
Sounds funny maybe, but getting off painkillers was no joke.
It took about three weeks to break that addiction habit. Three long weeks. Sleep was wrecked. Body felt wrong. Mood was down in the dirt. Pain kicks came hard. Well-being was up to shit. Everything felt heavy and ugly. Day felt long. Night felt even longer. Not much glamour in that fight. Just one day, then next day, then next one. Rough work.
That is something people do not always understand. They see you back home and think now everything should be improving nicely. Nice little recovery story. But real life is messier than that. Body is damaged. Head is tired. Habits are twisted. You are trying to build normal life again with half-broken tools. Some days you feel strong. Some days you feel like complete wreck. That is the truth.
Still, I got through it.
Came out clean. No more painkiller addiction. That part was finished. Freedom at last. Real freedom too. Not big movie freedom. Just simple freedom. Clearer head. No pills running my day. Being able to have my beer any time I like and not feel chained to some tablet bottle. Small thing maybe for somebody else. Big thing for me.
Of course, that does not mean all pain packed its bags and left.
Phantom pain is still here. Still part of life. That special kind of stupid pain from arm that is not even there anymore. Hard thing to explain to normal people. They see missing arm and think story ended there. No. Story keeps going in nerves, in brain, in those weird sharp kicks that come from nowhere. Some moments more quiet. Some moments louder. But always somewhere around.
Nowadays I just take it as part of my life. Not because I like it. Because fighting reality every minute is even more tiring. Better to accept what is there and keep moving. So that is what I do. Live with it. Deal with it. Every moment of my great life.
Back home from hospital is not only body recovery. It is mind recovery too. Habit recovery too. Whole life recovery. Learning again how to sleep. How to think straight. How to do normal things. How to enjoy something small without feeling destroyed all the time. That part takes longer than people think.
But still, home is important.
Because home is where real life begins again. Not easy life. Not perfect life. But real one. You start making your own rules again. Your own routine. Your own small victories. Better sleep one night. Less pain one morning. One laugh. One beer. One normal moment. Those little things count a lot when you come back from hell.
So yes, back home from hospital can be hard as hell.
But it can also be beginning of freedom. Slow freedom. Painful freedom. Crooked freedom maybe. But still freedom.
And after all that, even one ordinary day starts feeling like something worth keeping.
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