Hi Friends,
I am disappointed in myself. I wonder if sometimes we create some of our own problems. Do you ever wonder if you are guilty of being your own enemy? I know I am my own worst enemy!
It is instinct to want to live life to the fullest, do things for our self, be independent, carry our weight, not be a burden, and just do what we want.But does that instinct hurt us in the long run? Do we hurt ourselves?
Would we heal faster, better, stay healed longer if we weren't in such a hurry to get back in the game? Is there anyone out there that could prove otherwise? Because we need to, we have to go back to work to support our families, do household chores, be there for our kids and spouse, shop, yard work, cook or whatever it is that we find ourselves doing because we need to or want to.
We do try not to BLT,we do try to take our Drs. advice seriously to alleive or eliminate the pain. We do try to follow restrictions with as much time and patience as possible.
But we are all guilty of doing things we shouldn't just once or twice here and there daily. I know I think I'll just lean over to get this, lift that,then later when I'm hurting more, I realize I bent,lifted and twisted more than I should have. Then I worry will the pain get better, go away, or did I hurt myself for today or longer? Will I pay for this forever? Every time we bend, lift, sit too long, twist, whatever we do all day are we making the discs weaker each time? Are we causing the fusion to be weak, the screws/hardware to loosen? Could we help ourselves more? How? How much is too much? Not enough?
OK, I feel really dumb because I'm guilty of doing some pretty bad things this week which I am really paying for! Instinct will kill me! My washing machine sits on a small ledge and it was off balance, jumping...so my instinct was to run toward it, and hold it down until I could turn it off because I though it was going to fall off onto the car! But how dumb is that? It's a 200# front loader, like I could have stopped it from falling even before all this!
YIKES! OK, that was enough to cause the old recurrent pain in my lower back, rear, down my legs, nerves on fire!!! I hope I didn't hurt myself for the long road ahead! I was hoping for better days and a long time before another surgery!
But if that wasn't enough ...for some reason I think because I'm at 5 months I could and should do more so I decided to organize the closet a little bit. I thought the box was light and it was heavy, so I put it back, then I thought I could reach to the back of the closet to get a few things....obviously, I can't think clearly or I'm not strong enough to do as much as I want...my body won't let me do what my heart and head wants to do!
So I'm here in bed with two heating pads, one on my back, one on my legs, tramadols in my system trying to behave myself and get the pain in check before my husband has a heart attack! DH says he has worked too hard helping me for me to hurt myself. He wants me to stay in bed and behave! Actually, he just wants to be sure I can still cook dinner tonight or should he get take out for them...LOL...he is happy I am in charge of meals again! LOL!!!
So that is why I ask these questions. I know we are all trying to do what we can. We do what we need and want to to have somewhat of a life.
Just wondering what are you guilty of today?
What do you think? Could we, would we heal better, faster, longer? What should we do? Live in a box!
Have a good day!
Kathy
Sometimes when there is a "grace period" of pain, we try to get things done before our time runs out due to the pain rushing back in full force. It is like living on borrowed time. And we sometimes forget to respect our limitations and wind up paying the price later on. My husband is the same way too, he rather have my do nothing so I can cook dinner too.
I don't mind, and when I do cook I feel better about myself (and the food tastes better 
) I haven't done anything really to be guilty of pushing myself today, but when I feel better I probably will. 
PLS,nerve damage,facet arthropathy,severe DDD,DJD,scar tissue; Fibro
Back Surgeries: Microdiscectomy/ laminectomy,2 level TLIF/Laminectomy w/ hardware, Synchromed infusion pump
Meds: Dilaudid,Oxycodone,Lyrica,Robaxin,Cymbalta,Elavil,Plaquenil
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This can vary from person to person, so do not take comments as medical facts or rules
I feel that sometimes too. I'm not sure if I love myself enough to feel well. Still searching for that perfect solution if you know what I mean?!
It has been said before that it is possible to perpetuate our own foibles but that its too harsh, we all need time the correct support and encouragement to improve our situation and for the most part we are surviving as best we can, in isolation devoid of encouraging words and travelling at pace towards a dead end, only having to retract our steps and find another more equitable route.
We envisage a destination, when in reality it may be the journey itself and that illusion and find the ideal plan a manifestation of what were have been told or encouraged to devise. We are our own hardest critics and generally need no others to confirm our apprehension, that little voice in our heads continually reiterates that thing we could or should be doing with no reference to our individual reality. If we can stay balanced and under the radar of depression and survive pain every day that should be sufficient we measure ourselves against the physical world and we are more that the pain that pervades us.
As you say we can espouse a considerable effort in staying stationary and we all need the correct support and guidance to move forward and see that the energy used, can be better utilised. We to some extent use that fire fighting approach using our resources for that immediate problem, ordering priorities takes time and practice, we only exceed our capacity a few times before were learn that metronomic change from manic activity to subsequent immobility, we had been that individual when adequate was not enough and we pushed ourselves knowingly or unwittingly beyond our overall physical capability and paid the ultimate price.
Intervention and pace should have come sooner and we should not be too hard on ourselves, we live with pain even day and only some know what effort that takes and how hard we try. Sometime the flare-ups come without any intervention from us or reason and we have to ride that storm to the end,learning from it.
We do what we know until we know better and that is the learning process, the dilemma is doing what we should, when we do know and living a life with limited opportunity never easy simple or reasonable. We present to the world a painless individual while simultaneously enduring pain of unimaginable impact, that is some game face, we even hide it from ourselves. We should acknowledge and applaud our achievements however small, they have intrinsic value, they may not be the status of others but we did them in spite of the pain.
John
DDD.1990 Laminectomy, Failed spine fusion, hartshill rectangle RLS. 3 stents
Pain is inevitable, misery is optional. Sternbach et al
Pain is a more terrible lord of mankind than even death itself.
Albert Schweitzer 1953.
“It’s not things that trouble us but the views we take of them” Epitectus