Coping

If you’re reading this right now, and you are not in chronic pain, please take a moment to be extremely thankful and give yourself a big hug and a high five. Because you are sooooo blessed.

I didn’t really want to write about it, but I don’t know what else to do. I can’t talk about it anymore to anyone without getting so upset that I start to cry. I hate crying. There are too many emotions that immediately burst to the surface and I succumb to them all immediately. Even writing this upsets me. I don’t want to be a suffering person anymore.

Today I tried to go to Crossfit for the Halloween WOD. I was really excited to go and spend time with my friends and feel a part of that again. My pain level has been what I now refer to as “normal” (about a 5). PT isn’t helping. My therapist now believes (due to my constant convincing) that it’s my SI joint. I don’t believe it’s a disc causing all of this pain. I have two PT sessions left and my re-check next week with my Dr. I plan to ask for an injection immediately and if that doesn’t help I’m prepared to fling myself onto an operating table at this point. And that reality makes me the most sad. I’m 28.

I couldn’t make it past the warm up. I tried ONE hang snatch with just a tiny amount of weight on the bar and immediately felt something tear and level 10 pain shoot through that joint and buttock down through my quad. It was instantly debilitating and I hobbled out to lay on some ice and cry in private. I can’t believe after all of this I am back to this point. In words it looks like: anger, sadness, fear, frustration, depression, agony, loneliness.

I feel bad when people try to comfort me because I don’t know what to say and it makes me cry. I’m honestly exhausted of people asking about my back because it’s exhausting to admit that I’m no better. People don’t know what to say when you tell them, except that it will be okay. Maybe it will, but I can’t see how anymore.

I want my life back. I feel so angry that everything I worked for the last year with my health and fitness is going to waste. I can see my muscle definition softening and there is literally nothing I can do about it. And as all of that begins to deteriorate, so does my joy, my self confidence, my passion. I try to wake up with a fresh perspective every day, but it’s not easily maintained when it hurts to sit, bend over, stretch, whatever. Being in pain makes your mind go to crazy insane places too. Too insane to write here.

I don’t want to deal with this anymore. My mind is exhausted from constantly obsessing about my back. I feel so trapped. In one of our guest bedrooms, where I lay a lot to do my PT stretches, there is a clock on the wall. The clock’s battery is dead so it’s stuck on the same time and I study it while I’m in there, thinking about how appropriate the time is compared to how I feel. Stuck, not moving.

I’m sad for my husband who feels powerless to help me. A husband wants to be able to save his wife from any situation and there isn’t anything he can do for me except hug me and pray.

6 months ago I would day dream a lot about my “fantasy” of quitting my job and becoming a games athlete. And how fulfilling it would be to be able to train every day and build my health and body into what I wanted.

Tonight, as I sit on ice, unable to move without terrible discomfort, I am day dreaming about having an epidural and wondering if I will ever be able to touch my toes again without feeling like someone is sticking a burning branding iron into the back of my hip. Or sit crosslegged on the ground without having the breath taken from me.

Tonight I am feeling sorry for myself and there is nothing anyone can do or say to turn this pity ship around. Hopefully the sun comes up bright tomorrow.