On Setbacks
I talked to a friend today who expressed despair and
frustration that after years of struggling with her health, she seems to be
getting worse. Based on my own experience, though, I saw that she was indeed making
progress. “But all I can do is sleep!” Last year she couldn’t sleep at all, she
was in so much pain. I remember this part of my own recovery and, at the time,
I too was distraught over what seemed to be a setback. But in hindsight, I
recognized that I was indeed progressing.
I’ve since thought of this time as the basement of my
injury. When my body had finally crashed, exhausted from being on red alert
constantly for several years, I seemed to have also lost my spirit. It was
terrifying. I didn’t think I would be able to go on. What was really happening
though, was that my body was beginning to regenerate itself. It needed to
sleep. For a year, it felt like. All that laying around gives you plenty of
time to think about something other than how much pain you’re in.
It also became obvious to me that my symptoms were running
in cycles. At that point, I had read Dr. Oliver Sachs landmark book Migraines. In it, he talks about the
periodicity of the neurological system and my symptoms ran parallel to his
descriptions, even though I’ve never experienced migraines. This gave me the
courage to keep on through a very dark period in my journey.
chronic pain, fibromyalgia, carpal tunnel syndrome,
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