Being in constant physical pain does terrible things to people. I should know.
And in recent weeks, my reality of pain has intensified beyond belief. My lower back cannot cope with the lifting and carrying of water buckets any longer. My shoulder, where a felt/heard a rip some six months ago, goes through varying stages of difficulty from locking and sudden short term pain to a dull constant ache. But worst of all has been the increasingly frequent temper tantrums of my already volatile knees. On Tuesday morning my knees just capitulated. For the two and a half hours I managed to be at work, my only need was to get all the weight of my knees. And do you know what a debilitating need that is? To take your weight off one joint is fine, but to try and remove it from both is impossible. I wanted to sit down. I wanted to cry. I persisted with work for two and a half hours with this demented shuffling gait trying to put as little stress on my knees as I could while still standing and walking. And when someone looked at me and asked if I was okay, all I could do was burst into tears and choke out 'can I go home?' For the rest of that day I was in agony. Sitting, standing, walking, lying down. All of it was agonising. Thankfully I woke up to the pain all but gone in my left knee. But my right knee, things are still far from perfect. I'm in pain write now as I sit here writing this.
I am used to pain. As terrible as that sounds, I have become accustomed to a certain level of it. But what I've experienced over the last few days has been beyond reckoning for me and I'm not exactly sure what to do about it. Except self medicate. Too much nurofen, rest, ice, heat, strapping tape and simply hoping for the best.
This whole debilitating experience has simply served to remind me that I am not destined to be happy. No matter how hard I try, I will always lose. There will always be something in my path to trip me over; a wind to snuff out the light as I think I've reached the end of this ever dark tunnel. And once again I can only call into question the unfairness of the cards I've been dealt - even though I know this will do me absolutely no good.
Even as my moods even out, my personal crisis do not. I am dangerously sleep deprived, somehow functioning on three to four hours each day. I am watching my family capitulate as my parents try to bring my brother back to us. I am being blamed for my sisters anxiety. I am cutting deeper and drawing more blood. Mum is getting a partial hysterectomy. We have no money as a family. The ATO could sink Mum's business.
I don't think I grasped the saying 'when it rains it pours' until this moment. But there is no mistaking it now.
And yet, for no reason at all, I continue to get up each day. I continue to struggle and fight. I know that things cannot ever be the way I want them to be and yet I push on in the hope that they might be.
- Sky
