Fighting the Good Fight

Well today was filled with many blessings...thank goodness! Lol, I needed it! It was my 2nd day in a row with good pain. Good pain to me is a level of about 4 or 5 out of 10. It's definately manageable and I can keep a smile on my face all day with it. So today I was able to take Lydia outside to play on the deck with all of her outdoor toys. She was learning to kick balls (toys, I promise, ha ha...), play on the teeter-totter, and walking up and down the back ramp. So when Lucy woke up my nanny and I walked the girls down to the park and there Lydia learned to climb up the stairs on the jungle gym, go on the slide, and she was repeating words like crazy! I was such a proud mama, she is a sponge right now and I love it when I get to teach her these things. It was such a great blessing!!!

My mom also directed me to a new RSD website where I signed up for a membership where I will recieve quarterly newsletters, a magazine, learn about area support groups, hear "hope" stories, and learn about new medical and legislation information. So I was reading the stories of other RSD patients as I am still on a search to find someone with my type of RSD. Systemic RSD is so rare, that I had yet to find one person who's RSD started out systemically. Well today I found her!

It was a mixed blessing. As I read her medical case study I realized her and I are very similar, almost scarily similar. She too suffered from scoliosis, harrington rod fusion surgery, a 2nd fusion, spinal stenosis, and back and leg pain. Well in 1992 she was diagnosed with systemic RSD after having gone through all that. All of which I've had! The dr.s said it made her susceptible to RSD, I'd never heard that before! Well here's where it gets a bit scary; she was diagnosed in 1992 and by 1993 she was quadropalegic and living in a nursing home at the age of 35. In 1 year she progressed that badly!!! And since then since it had spread to her abdomen the pain was so severe it caused complications in her intenstines and colon. She's had her colon removed, has "dumping" syndrome (yes it's just as gross as it sounds, lol), and she's had a heart attack. So as of now with treatments she now has her pain successfully reduced to a level 4 and she can finally be in public again like going to church, concerts, family functions, etc. (Positive!)

Well I thought to myself I have 2 options when dealing with this information. I can either 1, assume I will follow in her footsteps and start preparing mentally for being paralyzed by the age of 30, or 2, I can fight. Fight like hell to regain some control of my destiny.

On the physical side of it, it will be tricky as friends reminded me that I am still recovering from my spinal fusion surgery that has a 6-9 month recovery period. So I will still be careful with overdoing it on that respect, but I am gonna start moving. I don't care how high my pain level is that day, I am gonna take a breath, say a prayer, and move. I am refusing to give up on my body before it gives up on me.

Now emotional, it will be a different story. Severe depression and anxiety are huge symptoms of RSD, so (as I am sure you all have noticed by now) I have very big highs and very big lows. Hello Captain Obvious, right??? LOL!! But I am hoping if my head can stop playing tricks on me and I can just accept myself for who I am now, I can really try to fight this. I need to stop this back and forth crap in my head of the dr.s are wrong, oh they are definately right, well maybe they are wrong. It is very obvious I have this disorder, I just have to get my head and heart to match up.

And spiritually, which in the past (even as of 2 weeks ago) would have been my easiest struggle. In fact it wouldn't have even been one. God is all powerful, he has a plan, I need to trust in it and believe that I can get through anything with him on my side, right? Yeah that's what I've been telling myself my whole life. But I've never been shaken to the core like this before. Even with all I've been through and some of you know all of those dirty details, I've never felt this forsaken before. I think it's because this time I have so many more cards on the table, so much more to lose, so much more to fight for. My girls, oh my precious babies, they need me...we are so close the 3 of us. And when you add Chintan into the mix, we are a really tight unit. So it's time to stop being so selfish and I need to realize that God is a busy man, with all the heartache out there and need to realize I can't be priority #1 right now to him and that's okay. He's gotten me through plenty other things in the past. And I know now it's like he was suiting me with armor to fight this fight. And I do know that if things get really sticky he'll step in and do what he feels best. I have to believe that, I need to believe that, and trust in that.

So that's it! I choose the fight and I'm telling ya, I'm a tough cookie!