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The Other Side of the Opioid Epidemic
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, we were dealing with the opioid epidemic, which continues to plague us.
I haven’t talked about this topic before, but the opioid crisis has affected my family very deeply and on many levels. It has touched us physically and emotionally in ways you never hear mentioned in the news. I understand that opioid addiction is a real problem. However, the war waged on opioids by the government and the medical community is preventing people who genuinely need effective pain medication from getting the treatment they need to live a life that’s remotely tolerable, let alone satisfying and happy.
Hitting Home
My dad has been permanently disabled for 27 years. He is an Army veteran who suffers from a painful spine injury caused when his back slammed into the hard steel interior of the tank he was inside as it rolled down a hill in Germany in 1975. That injury, combined with the additional spine issues he developed during his work as a dock worker (and an experimental surgery that followed), all left him with chronic, debilitating pain.
