Learning My Limits

As I stated last week, I have been dealing with chronic pain for about 10 months now. Luckily, last week, I finally received answers. I have tendinitis in a tendon that attaches to my sternum. This type of injury takes over a year to heal, with complete immobilization. Unfortunately, with the chest, you can't immobilize it, since breathing even moves it, so, it is going to take considerably longer for it to heal. That's the good and the bad news.

Over the last ten months, I have learned that my body has limits. While going through my certification process, I studied about chronic pain. I learned that exercise is extremely important for people with chronic pain because it helps prevent depression. I thought I understood. I didn't, I do now.

When you are suffering from chronic pain, it is as if there is an energy vacuum taking every ounce of energy you have out of you. All you want to do is sleep and rest, hoping to find a way to make the hurting stop. And the more you sleep and rest, the more the pain continues the easier it is to start being depressed. The more depressed you get, the more you want to sleep and rest. It is a vicious cycle. And when you are in more pain than you ever though you could survive on a chronic basis, the last thing you want to even start to think about is exercise.

The active, personal trainer in me hated me! I hated the fact that all I was doing was lying around. I wanted SO BADLY to be able to get myself up and go for a walk, or to do anything, for that matter. And the more I didn't the worse things got for me.

Until one day, I couldn't take it anymore. I told myself, enough is enough. At that moment, I decided to do small things, lay on the floor and do tiny ab movements, walk to the kitchen and back, use the bathroom upstairs instead of in the living room. I discovered that even though these things didn't make the pain go away, they made the anger and fog in my head go away. I started doing very basic crunches, every day. At the beginning, I couldn't tolerate walking more than a few steps at a time, so I took those few steps. I started building on them. If I took 20 steps at a time to begin with, a week later, I upped it to 30. Little tiny improvements. My mental clarity started to come back. My self hatred started to dissipate.

Due to the nature of my injury, my doctors still won't let me work, for fear that I aggravate and reinjure myself, nor am I allowed to lift more than 5 pounds, but they have finally cleared me for basic cardio.

I am not to push myself to the point of pain, so I have to watch my heart and breath rates, but I can start to be me again.

The more I do, the better I feel mentally. I found a pain specialist that has found a way to almost completely eliminate the pain through injections. So for the first time in 10 months, I am at such a minimal amount of pain that I almost miss it. Now, I only hurt when I do too much, if I lift something too heavy, or push myself on the spin bike, which is good, because this pain reminds me that I am still healing, but doesn't stop me from being me.

Every day has been a struggle, both mentally and physically, but I know that with the support network that I have, I am slowly coming back from the abyss.

Wow!!! Over a year!

I am such a horrible blogger!!! I totally haven't even posted anything on this blog in well over a year.

There is a reason, a really good one, I promise!!!

I have been battling something terrible since July 28. On July 28th, I woke up with chest pain so bad that I was concerned that I was having a heart attack. I went to the hospital, I wasn't having a heart attack. I have been undergoing so many tests that it is insane. They still have no answers for me.

Well, that is the depressing news. The good news is that I am learning how to cope with chronic pain. Chronic pain is a terrible, terrible thing to be dealing with.

I have had some very terrible experiences with doctors, but the doctors at Rush University have been so amazing that I have to rave about them.

I haven't been able to work, I haven't been able to do almost anything. It hasn't been great. I have learned so very, very much about myself. I am a lot stronger than I ever thought I was, not physically, but mentally and emotionally. I have learned to ask for help. I have learned that there is more to life than just working.

I have also learned that if you eat right, you can stave off weight gain after almost a year of not being able to workout.

I have learned that when you have chest pain this bad, you lose most use of your upper body. It has been insane, but, hopefully, soon, I will be up and running, metaphorically speaking.

Well, I am going to try and keep up with this thing better, now.