Sunday, January 15, 2012

Note to Future Self

It's no secret.

I could really have done without last year and nearly everything that happened in it. Health problems rained down, pain moved in, and then I made some bad decisions. Some of those bad decisions included absurd amounts of pretzel M&Ms and Dr. Pepper.

Recap:
January: Recovering from hysterectomy, bladder spams
March: Herniated disks in my neck freaked the frak out, injured foot
April: Lost sensation in my right hand due to neck injury, steroid shots
August: The ear pain begins and my herniated disks freak out again, more shots
September: Shots didn't work, so more, different shots
December: Finally get relief from acupuncture for ear pain (due to TMJ) only to have it come back over Christmas break.

And now, finally my ear has responded again to acupuncture and I am off the muscle relaxers, pain meds, and nerve meds. I actually never went back on the pain stuff when the pain came back over Christmas - I just can't trust myself to come back from that deep, dark place - but I did end up taking a lot of nerve meds to try and compensate for it. It left me wiped out. Also, fat. The nerve meds kill/numb my taste buds (impaired my judgement) and pretty much the only thing I could still taste was chocolate.

So I ate a lot of it. And it cost me about 25 pounds.

It wasn't until my daughter tried on a dress I bought two summers ago and it looked great on her, that I realized how far I'd come from there. How far I'd come from feeling the best I ever have to the exact opposite.


Even just this past June I was still in okay shape--not that shape means everything. Mentally, though, I am not the same. I have been the Whipping Boy for Pain for the past five months and I let it get the best of me. And you want to know something? Even with all those medicines in my system, I still felt awful.

Given the choice between hurting or feeling crappy and not giving a damn about pretty much anything, Self, next time do us all a favor and just deal with the pain.

RESOLVED: Get in the best shape of my life again and this time really enjoy it.

Is anyone still out there? What do you resolve?