Margaret Hamilton has a twisted spine, paralysed arm and a limp. She lives with chronic pain, but hasn’t let this stop her living her life. A real character, the comedian of the Pain Concern office told us about her life with pain, how she copes with it and what Pain Concern has done for her.

Margaret was 24 years old when she suffered a brain haemorrhage and collapsed at home. Due to the haemorrhage occurring on Christmas day, she was misdiagnosed and was left waiting for two weeks before being hospitalized. Testing and treatment was put off for eight weeks to allow the excess blood to drain away from her brain. When doctors attempted to locate the source of her brain aneurism, the test triggered a stroke, she was left with a paralysed arm and a pronounced limp which caused the twisting of her spine resulting in lower back pain.

When taken into hospital, Margaret’s family was told to come in and say goodbye. However, she recovered from the aneurism and stroke, but was then told she wouldn’t walk again. Margaret thought this was obviously a joke, never walk again! Margaret refused to believe this and would try to get up and escape the hospital but would just fall. As part of her treatment, Margaret saw physiotherapists who told her she would need to get a wheelchair and still to this day tell her she needs to be in a wheelchair. Margaret replies to this statement with a laugh and firm “Ridiculous! I’m too young to be in a wheelchair” Margaret spent a total of five months in hospital, before she was considered fit enough to leave.

When Margaret finally left hospital there was no support, in her own words “You’re chucked out, abandoned, and then what?” Margaret fought through the pain and tried to get back to normal life, but walking the short distance from her flat to work was too much, leaving her tired and in more pain. Even just one or two days a week was too much, and then Margaret started having panic attacks.

Margaret now realizes that the panic attacks occurred because she was in denial about all that had happened. When she thought that it was all a joke in hospital, and then when she was released by trying to immediately pick up her life again as though nothing had happened. Margaret says that no one told her to slow down, no one told her that it was ok, to not be ok. Additionally being completely dependent as you are in hospital, “staring at the same 4 walls all day”, back to the scary world outside did nothing to prevent the panic attacks.

The depression and anxiety that Margaret experienced had knock on effects on her chronic pain issues, making her pain worse. There was also an incident where one of Margaret’s doctors thought that the pain was all psychological due to these other mental issues and caused Margaret’s disability benefits to be stopped. Margaret is also critical of the help provided by her GP’s, saying that pills were the only treatment option they offered her to deal with the pain. However, after becoming addicted to pain killers Margaret now refuses to take opioid drugs for fear of becoming addicted again.

So how does Margaret deal with her pain? She says that people have got to talk about their pain, fears and concerns. “Better to get it out there” she says, you may feel like your complaining all the time and that people don’t want to hear it, but not talking about these thing will just result in you feeling worse, isolating yourself mentally and making your pain worse. By using techniques like meditation, pacing and reiki (even though she doesn’t believe in it) she has learned to copes with her pain.

Now Margaret volunteers at Pain Concern. She says that she feels empowered by the knowledge she gets from working with the charity and by listening to the Airing Pain programmes. She says “I have the gumption now to ask my doctor about things I have heard about on Airing Pain or in the office” Thanks to Airing Pain, Margaret can now demand more from life.