I Fight On

My body hurts. Everywhere.  As I sit here, my legs throb and ache and the pain shoots into my feet making them burn and tingle.  I want to stand up and walk but the pain in my knees, calves, hips, and hamstrings makes the thought unbearable.  But I can’t sit here anymore.  My feet are going numb. My toes are frigid. I’m cold and tired, so very tired.

My chest feels heavy.  I feel as though my next breath will be the last one I take with ease.  This frightens me and makes me wonder if the cause really is tight muscles, poor posture, stress, and anxiety.  I straighten up to see if that makes it easier to breathe.

My neck is throbbing.  I don’t even have to move it to feel the pain.  It’s swollen and bruised and painful to the touch.  It feels better to lean backwards, but it hurts to lean forwards or move side to side.  If I lean backwards for too long, I get dizzy.  Again.

My stomach contracts and spasms.  I can’t pinpoint the pain.  Can it really be radiating from my back?  Is that a thing?  I twist my lower back to see if it hurts.  It hurts so much I can’t bear to twist to the other side.  I try to find a comfortable position, but when I find one that doesn’t hurt my stomach, my back, or chest, my neck starts to hurt.  I switch positions to ease one ailment at a time and then shift again to relieve another.  It’s a constant search for momentary comfort.  

I’m hurting.  All over.

I wake up in the morning and I’m exhausted.  My neck aches, my head throbs, my chest feels heavy, my legs seem as though they will be unable to carry me.  I inch off of the bed and panic that my sore hands and numb fingers indicate I am having a stroke.  I lose my footing as I grab onto my dresser and the room begins to spin.  Then I obsess about having a brain tumor.  Or a blood clot. Or a heart attack.  Or cancer.  Or some rare disease the doctors can’t find that is going to lead to my sudden death.  I should stop writing now before they think I’m crazy.

Too late.

Are you okay? 

I don’t know how to answer that question.  Am I okay?  Well, I don’t have Covid if that’s what you’re wondering.  I wasn’t diagnosed with a deadly disease if that’s what you’re asking.  So in that sense, am I “okay”?  I guess I’m okay.  I am “satisfactory” I guess.  I haven’t been given a death sentence.  I’m not “outstanding,” but I am alive.  I am functioning, somewhat.

What I have is not life-threatening, but it is life-altering.

Well, I guess it can eventually become life-threatening.

I remind myself that I have a beautiful, healthy son.  I have a loving, supportive husband.  I have amazing friends and family surrounding me.  In those ways, I am incredibly blessed.  In those ways, I’m outstanding.  Externally, I am doing amazingly.  Internally, I am fragile.  Physically, I feel broken.  Spiritually, I feel strong.  What’s the average of all of those things?  Okay?

Well, then I guess I am doing okay.

If you were a fly on a wall in my house, you would be able to see that I rarely do my own laundry. It takes an abnormal amount of energy for me to descend the stairs into my basement and climb them back up again. I can’t even think about doing this repeatedly to do several loads without the stinging pain overpowering the lower half of my body. Cleaning my house requires me to take several breaks forcing me to ice my lower back and heat my shoulders. A quick dinner is manageable but anything too complicated that takes longer than thirty minutes to prepare hurts. Physically hurts. 

I cooked dinner tonight after I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher.  I was on my feet for two hours straight.  And now I can’t move.  Pain shoots throughout my entire body from my head to my feet.  This is a particularly bad night.  I can’t seem to shake the pain or even take the edge off.  The heat, the ice, the stretching, the oils aren’t working.  I want to do more, but it hurts too much. So, I sit…again.

It is a vicious cycle and I struggle to remember if the physical symptoms started before my internal anguish. I make a list of all that needs to get done tomorrow because I am done for tonight.  I pray I have the energy then to do it all. If I could just have the energy tomorrow to be more positive, I will have been successful.  Even though the physical pain persists, I need to be hopeful it will be duller tomorrow.  I need to remember that I can change my life, that I can break the negative thought patterns, the eating patterns, and the activity patterns. I need to remember that I am in control of how I feel internally and that I can break the patterns that suffocate me and leave me gasping for air. I can improve my physical condition. I can get through a day without thinking paralyzing thoughts. Although the pain feels like too much to handle right now, I have the ability to overcome it, to at least decrease it, slowly, steadily, and successfully.

And so, I plan for tomorrow and vow it will be different. I cross several items off my list so that I am left with only three. I can manage three. I want to add that I will walk on the treadmill, but the pain is too much right now to commit to that. 

So, tomorrow I will meditate, I will stretch, and I will hydrate. That is all I can commit to right now. If I can manage those three things, I will have accomplished more on my healing journey than I did yesterday.

And so, I persist. I continue to smile and conceal the discomfort and distress knowing that I must carry on. I move forward, knowing I will take some steps backwards, but I need to be able to tell my boy that I struggled, I fought, and I overcame.

And primarily for that, I fight on.