A Dawning Realization

I went to bed last night with a heavy heart and on the verge of tears. It is today that I sit and write this with the knowledge that my physician is correct in his statement from yesterday. I have been given information that I did not want to hear and it has made me think long and hard about my future.

I started a new job this week and was so excited to be working again. Even more excited that this was a relatively simple position with little stress. My most taxing duty would be to ensure that there is enough food to feed the masses as they traipse in. A lot of multitasking was required and since I am the queen of that, it should be only too easy to pick up.

What I learned is that there is a lot more involved than what was explained during the interview process. I was asked if I was okay with lifting a certain weight load and I was confident that I would be. It was explained in such a way to sound as if that weight limit would only be a couple times during my shift, not that it would be almost constantly while working. And really, 40 pounds is not a lot in the big scheme of things. It is however; quite a lot to consistently heft up onto a wire storage rack that is almost a foot taller than I.

After three days of doing this no less than 70 times I was quite sore. I expected that. What I didn’t expect was for this seemingly small act to cause issues with my blood pressure, which in turn affects my heart rate, which affects breathing, so on and so forth. It’s a trickle effect, much like the champagne glasses filling with liquid. I sought out my physician to talk about the blood pressure issue, knowing that if we can address that, then everything else should fall into place shortly after. Instead, he performed a thorough physical exam and found that the muscles in my neck, shoulder, back, abdomen and legs, all had knots that he initially thought were developing muscles from weight training. The amount of pain that I was in was almost debilitating, but I only wanted help with my blood pressure.

I was of the understanding that the muscle soreness would ease over time. He frowned upon the conclusion of his exam and asked why I had palpable knots that were visible under my clothing. I was honest and told him about starting a new job and what it entailed. The look on his face was very kind, but his tone was a little reproachable. He said he understood my desire to work and to contribute to my household, but that any kind of stress on my body, in whatever form it comes in, does very bad things. Those bad things always start out with what one would consider a small issue, but quickly turns into me being hurt a lot more in a very short amount of time. This doctor has brought me back from the brink of death twice in less than three years. He truly understands me as a patient and he truly cares. He said he could not give me medical clearance to work for fear of what will shut down in my system.

It was actually hearing him say that I could not be medically cleared to work that hit me very hard. I have more questions than answers today, but I am certain that over time I will understand and find the answers I need. I know that he is correct in this. My mother has medical issues brought on and caused by stress. My grandmother did and I have other family members that do not do well with certain stressors. I was simply hoping to escape the same type of fate. Now that I know that is not a possibility then I wonder what I can do.

There are lots of things I can do and I do them every day. My best friend said to me, after I told her that I feel like such a burden, that I am far from a burden. I take care of my family and our home. I take care of our pets and make sure they have what is needed. I have a husband who loves me to a degree that I will never know, but I can understand it because I love him just as much. I provide a “home” for him to come to. I take care of everything, every day and I do it without a second thought and I do it alone because he is gone overseas more than what he is ever physically stateside. I fought for a very long time and shoved my medical needs to the wayside to ensure that I was doing the best that I could for my kids while being a single parent. I used to work two or three jobs just to provide for them, and I did it all without complaint.

My friend is correct. I did what needed to be done. Now I am paying the price for that. I ran myself in the ground. I focused on everything and everybody else and ignored what I was feeling at the time. I didn’t have time to be sick. Now I am nothing but sick. What hurts the most is that there is nothing physically wrong with me, in the sense that, when others see me they see nothing wrong. I have health problems that are not seen with the naked eye and that makes people mean and cruel. I do not want to be mocked for having a health problem that others cannot see. Yet, I know it will happen. There will be people that say I should suck it up and get to whatever.

My response will be that I would love to. I would love to have a physical impairment that they can see so that they don’t say hurtful things. I want nothing more than to do something more than just breathe and exist. I want to feel like I am helping my family and not harming them. I want to have a day where I am not in any kind of physical pain. To have a day where I can smile freely because I can move freely! Instead, I have to look at every situation and analyze it quickly to see if this might be something I can enjoy with my family. I don’t get to do that.

There are so many medical conditions that cannot be seen, yet people have the impression that if there is nothing physically wrong with you, that you are not ill. I beg to differ. Arthritis is one of these things, yet people aren’t saying that they can just ignore it and go on. Well, you can ignore it, but it’s only going to make you hurt so much worse if you do. Lupus is another. Fibromyalgia. Psoriatic Arthritis. Rhuematoid Arthritis. Crohn’s. Cancer. Mental Health. These are just a few of the things that came to mind. I wouldn’t dare walk up to a cancer patient and tell them that it’s all in their head and they should just move on as if nothing is wrong. So why do people do this to those of us who have an ailment that cannot be seen?

I don’t know. It’s hard for me to sit here and less than 40 years of age, knowing that stress will kill me. It’s how my body processes it. It turns on itself and instead of just attacking whatever germ, it sees everything inside as a foreign object and tries to kill itself. This is not fiction. I hurt, every single day. Yet I keep plugging on. Because I am a fighter and I do not know how to quit.

So, while I am having a bad day and I’m feeling like a burden, I know that I’ll continue putting one foot in front of the other and moving on. Because it’s what has to be done.