I'm going insane, my back pain is keeping me from sleeping

Written by: OG Jappleng

Seriously, this back pain is terrible! Some days I hardly feel it but on other days I can't even sleep and then when I get out of bed it feels like I was shot in the lower back and it hurts a lot until the pain killer kicks in. I don't remember when was the last time I had a full night's rest, I think it was around February?

This past week I had no real sleep. The best I could do is forced meditation and that's pushing it since I'm tense the whole time. The side effects are pretty bad because it's not just the pain but the outcome of that pain that really upsets me.

Side Effects of not sleeping (what I'm experiencing)

I become inefficient
I have issues writing because I can't sleep / too tired
I can't remember the simplest things, even what I ate earlier in the day
Keeping a schedule is almost impossible, deadlines are hard to make
Quality of life in general sucks really bad
Depression, mood swings, lethargy
Poor decision making
Constant pain, recently it's been getting a lot worse and the feeling of being tense / suffocating all the time when the pain killers aren't in my system in the morning is like someone is trying to kill me

I thought I could bare this pain but it's gotten to the point that I want to buy chloroform and use it on myself. The agony is just too much sometimes. I need a new bed but a new bed that is meant for my bad back is expensive (100% latex or at least 97%) and anything that they sell at retail is usually terrible and breaks after a year or two with no real warranty (the warranty is a scam usually).

I could go to the doctor, get an X-Ray, CT or MRI scan but that costs money that could be used for a new bed. I can't take out any more loans, Jappleng cost too much money as it has to develop. I could start building other people websites and fixing computers but that takes time away from Jappleng but at this point I'm being driven to madness by the pain and every day now I worry about my good health.

Essentially the reason why I couldn't meet deadlines as I would normally have is because of my back, terrible bed that broke after 2 years and the lack of funds to pay for proper medical care and a proper bed. This past year was terrible :/

On the plus side I've developed strategies to make Jappleng more fun and engaging but I need rest. I'll explain this further in the Jappleng dev blog. That's all the rant that I have for today.