Struggling - if you look up this word in the dictionary it has a number of explanations as to what it means from
fight,
grapple, wrestle, to
strive, endeavor, battle and much more.
To describe what I am going through at the moment I would need to incorporate all of those words and more.
All fibromyalgia patients know the sort of pain we are going through on a daily basis and how we all try to manage/cope with it, but I also have failed back surgery syndrome to manage as well. However
I do manage it all
most of the time. But this year has been a bit of an uphill struggle for me.
Earlier in the year I started with awful pain in my elbow and down my fingers which after months of different treatments I ended up having
Cubital Tunnel Release Surgery. The pain relief was virtually instant and I thought I was managing it all well. But recently I seemed to have slipped down the ladder again.
About six weeks ago I started to experience pain on the outer side of my foot which I initially put down as arthritis but as time and the pain progressed I wondered if maybe I had a small stress fracture. I popped to A&E to get it checked out but they could see no fracture but some arthritis and thought maybe I had sprained my ankle.
I carried on wearing the support elastic but as days went into weeks I was getting no pain relief and had been walking with a limp for some time so I decided to go and visit my GP. After a bit of pressing and prodding around my GP said that she thought it was a
Neuroma on my foot and that I needed to see a Podiatrist. She said he/she would probably give me a steroid injection and that should be the end of the problem.
So I came home and duly made an appointment to see a podiatrist but with over six weeks of walking incorrectly my back was really starting to suffer. Then bang two days ago it went into spasm. One of the worst I have had to deal with in a long time as I even needed to wake my husband up in the night to help me get out of bed to use the toilet.
I am a true advocate of mind over matter and have written endless articles on how writing my blog takes me away from my pain. But I have to admit that at the moment I really am
struggling. I am obviously run down as I am also recovering from a nasty bout of laryngitis which then developed into a chest, throat and ear infection, so I know I am at rock bottom. But I can honestly feel as I get to the end of my post about my
struggle that I already feel a bit lighter having written about it.
I guess there is nothing as strong as the power of your mind when you most need it, especially when you are in pain.