Note: the basic gist of this post was written a couple of weeks ago, but because of major deadlines, it was never finished until now.
Precarious balance refers more to where I was the previous week. Things were again going alright after a rough couple of weeks of everything being flared. This week was a reminder of how precarious things actually were. I have a body that needs to move and does not want to be pushed. With major deadlines looming, there was less moving and more pushing and my body rebelled (or more accurately gave up). Absolutely all of the usual chronic pain is again flared and now losing progress with rehab as well, plus finding new issues popping up related to compensation issues. This is so incredibly frustrating and discouraging. I had to take a full break from rehab exercises to let things start to calm down but nothing helped until a full night of sleep and working through full set of exercises, heat, ice, etc. My body was just way beyond its limits. I have never been so close to wanting to give up. I am not a quitter, but my body is worn out and I am wearing down mentally and emotionally as well from the toll. I was reminded earlier this week that I am doing the equivalent of trying to balance and manage multiple full time jobs. School is like a full time job, each chronic condition is like a full time job, surgery rehab is the equivalent of at least a full time job. It is no wonder I am exhausted and cannot figure out how to balance everything--it really is not possible. If I have any one of the issues reasonably well managed, it means everything else is not. Most of the time, it is trying to have everything as managed as I can get it, but nothing fully managed. Rehab got the priority the first few weeks after surgery. This may be why recovery has been going so much better than anyone, including myself, anticipated.
Overwhelmed, exhausted, setbacks, loss of progress. Progress had slowed down, but I think this is the first there has been actual loss of progress and going backward. I had to take a full break from some exercises. The first part of the week, things were still going alright and I had asked about resumption of some other exercises from before surgery as well as increasing duration for swimming, elliptical, bike. These had all been OK'd. But, I never got to try. Things had felt "off" that day, and by evening, everything was hurting and even the surgical hip was pretty sore. I took it easy and only did gentle stretches and ice that evening. I woke the next morning with definite pain in the surgical hip, though it felt muscular and not joint. Still. it was significant enough to make me rethink things and rearrange my approach. I iced it, then proceeded into normal routine of heat, home exercises. However, I backed way off on the home exercises and called in to check how far to push things versus back off. I was told to back off the stretnghtening exercises for 48 hours, alternate heat with ice. Do stretches and cardio as tolerated. The surgical hip calmed down somewhat, but other things appeared and worsened. It was a challenging week and has been a challenging weekend. I honestly do not know how I am going to proceed from here, other than that I am going to do so somehow, some way. I am not giving up, not quitting...yet.
God knows the plan and His way is best.
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