Pain

"Pain is temporary.  It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place.  If I quit, however, it lasts forever." - Lance Armstrong

How much pain should one person have to endure?  I've asked myself this questions many times in the last few days, always in a moment of weakness when I'm indulging in a little session of feeling sorry for myself. For the last few weeks my back has been growing increasingly sore.  Rather than go to bed for a couple of days and rest until I felt better, I chose to live on the river in Egypt.  And while denial as a strategy has served me well at some points in my life, it wasn't a good strategy this time.

The doctor's diagnosis was disheartening.  I have herniated discs L5S4, L4 and L3.  The last time I herniated a disc was in 2007 and it left me flat on my back for five weeks.  I can't bear to do that again - thus my retreat to the strategy of denial.  When I stopped being able to stand, walk or turn over in bed, I was forced to face the reality.  So I'm back in bed though trying a different strategy this time.  My physiotherapist has given me some excercises to do along with instructions to ice and use my tens machine five times per day.  The excercises hurt like heck but I'm trying.  I don't have five weeks to spend flat on my back.  I'm looking for a miracle here.

 

Sunday is Jacob's 23rd birthday.  My first goal is to be able to sit at the dinner table.  I'm resigned to the fact that I won't be cooking the meal but there are enough other capable people around to do that.  Goal two is to be upright and able to dress well and go out for dinner on Wednesday - Merv's and my 25th wedding anniversary.  I'm happy I did my anniversary gift shopping early so I don't have to worry about that.  I don't even need to be able to dance, just to be well enough to go out and enjoy a quiet dinner.  Goal three is to be recovered enough to be able to get on a plane and do a red-eye flight to England for a family wedding in the first week of September.  In my current state it is hard to even imagine seven hours in economy class but it's still three weeks away and I'm determined.  I'm praying a lot too.