All I Want For Christmas...

I don't really talk about it much but the truth is I've probably had very few days where I've been completely healthy in about 2 years now. This has been something that has been tough to come to terms with cause it feels like I'm acknowledging that my body has been broken. I eat well and and I take care of myself so this struggle has been both frustrating and a real wake up call.

I was recovering from a wrist injury when I first started this blog. Those of you who've been with me for awhile will remember my bout with vertigo and tinnitus in the spring of 2012. That was a particularly low point since the condition left me bedridden and feeling like a shell of myself for the better part of a month. I still shudder to think at how sick to my stomach the mere sound of running water would make me for awhile and it really bites when laying down makes you even dizzier than standing up. After 6 months of Chinese herbal medicine treatments, I was able to recover from most of my symptoms though I did feel like a relapse might hit me early this past Spring. I was able to fend it off but I'd be lying if I told you that I don't live in perpetual fear of it coming back at any time. Since no doctor was able to diagnose me, I self-diagnosed myself and my ailments sounded like they could be due to a magnesium deficiency. I've been taking magnesium supplements twice daily along with epsom baths twice a week and it's been working so I'm sticking with it. Hydrating liberally and sleeping adequately helps as well. I've also continued to limit the time I spend on the computer since I found that prolonged exposure does trigger dizziness in me. That's not really an ideal scenario when you blog but it's necessary in my case. I don't know if I'll ever be able to completely kick this but I'm sure going to keep trying.

At the same time, I was also slowly developing a condition called adhesive capsulitis, better known as frozen shoulder. If I wasn't constantly dizzy and throwing up, I may have had a better realization of what was happening but the fact that I had something else wrong with me was just too much to process so I shielded myself with denial instead. By the time I was finally ready to deal with it, I couldn't even lift my left arm up halfway or reach around my back and the simple act of getting dressed had become excruciatingly painful. My doctor told me that it was bad but I could recover with physical therapy. It took 10 months of physical therapy and home exercise to regain my range of motion and become pain-free, well sort of anyway. There's still an ongoing presence of pain in my left shoulder and in my arm at times that reminds me that this condition can be recurrent. To prevent this, I still do maintenance exercises daily. I've been told the pain will go away eventually and I'm quite ready for that.

Of course it would be my luck that I re-injured my wrist towards the end of rehabbing my shoulder and ended up with a torn tendon. I wore a brace for 6 weeks while it healed before 8 weeks of physical therapy sessions. It still feels a tad prone to injury so I'm extremely careful and try not lift anything too heavy with my left hand. I also wear a brace on it when I sleep most nights to prevent it from turning and to keep myself from rolling or sleeping on it. Yes that has happened and it's no fun.

And then there's the ankle that I sprained on the way to my last therapy session for my shoulder. The irony of that is not lost on me. I was trying to avoid someone biking on the sidewalk and ended up spraining multiple ligaments and tearing tendons in my ankle. I had treatment and quite a few setbacks with this one. It was probably my own fault for walking too much on it before I should've and just kept re-aggravating the condition. I am unfortunately back in the brace and trying again to heal the torn tendons. The doctor has told me that if it doesn't heal this time, it will have to be surgically repaired and I'm trying my best to avoid that. This means laying off walking on it as much as possible for now. It's a good thing it's winter so I won't want to be out and it really hurts too much at the moment anyway.

If only good health came in a box that's really all I'd want this Christmas and many more to come. I realize it's not that easy and this will be another Christmas that I'm not completely well. While I'm accepting that for now, I'm also making a promise to myself to continue to dedicate myself to getting back to 100% or as close as possible. It's not always easy to stay positive when you're unwell and there are days when I just feel utterly defeated. I have to just keep reminding myself I could have worse things wrong with me and I'm lucky for that. I was once a real baby when it came to pain but since becoming a chronic pain sufferer, I'm so used to it that I hardly notice it anymore. If you've actually read this far, I didn't mean for this post to be a downer by any means. I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the incredible gift that good health truly is. If you're lucky enough to enjoy it, make sure you hold onto to it.

Photo Sources: Besotted Blog/Nature Blessed