'via Blog this'
I have no idea if this article I just read on my TC Disease Awareness group will post. It is about a woman who had a very bad accident and spinal injury. They were able to repair much of the damage and she had 10 more years of an active life and embraced those years. Then the neurological pain came back and there was nothing to be done, so she resorted to one of the many scams about stem cell treatment.
After reading the article these are some of my rambling thoughts.
This is one more reason that a supportive community becomes important. We cannot always think rationally when all we see is that our lives have become pain and we are focused on having lost everything we ever had. We need people who will help us go back to the basics. One of the basics for me is understanding that anytime you do anything invasive to the spinal column you are playing with fire. If you damage it, trying to repair it again usually helps for a while, but it is like any damage to the body--sooner or later there are going to be repercussion. And it SUCKS! OMG does it suck. I wish there was a miracle cure, a magic wand I could wave so we could all live pain free again. And there isn't and I can't.
In this last 1-1/2 years I have realized a lesson I learned many years ago--that you can only live where you are. I don't know if that makes sense. As usual, it is a very "zen" kind of thought. A Teri "other-wise" thought. I cannot live in the past and I cannot live in the future. I can only live in the moment I find myself in. Because of this, where I choose to focus my attention take on primary importance.
I can focus my attention on the fact that I am in pain all the time. I can look back at the recent past and remember I am in pain. I can project into the future and predict that tomorrow I will be in pain. I can mull over the fact that I can no longer do the things I used to do--from work to play, my life has changed dramatically and seemingly this change occurred overnight. One moment I was on track and the next moment I wasn't on track anymore.
or maybe--just maybe--this is my track. This is my path. I am here on this path because there is something I can learn, something I can contribute, some place I am going that I cannot see yet. I've always said--I can only be where I am when I'm there. I cannot be any place else. Here is where I am--here in this moment.
When I grow up, I want to be what I am when I'm being it. And this is what I am being in this moment. I cannot "be" anything else or anywhere else. I just can't. Even when I focus on the past or try to predict the future, I am still where I am in this moment.
My solution is to live in this moment regardless of whether I experience joy or sorrow. I know that the next moment can bring a totally different experience. I know that because I have been walking in this world for many years now and have experienced the fact that nothing stays the same--that the only constant in the universe is change. I don't have to rely on someone telling me this because I've walked through so many different experiences. Some of them seem to go on interminably and it feels like they will always be with me and yet--I have always walked out on the other side and into a new experience. Always.
Do I hurt today? Yes. Will I hurt tomorrow? I don't know, I haven't been there yet.
My dad, who was a man who loved nature and loved to hike through it, always told me two things: Follow your nose and you'll never get lost, and when I was so tired I didn't think I could make it to camp or a resting spot, Just put one foot in front of the other honey, and you'll get there.
So when I am feeling like I cannot go on and I will always be caught in this seemingly endless experience of pain I hear his voice: Just put one foot in front of the other honey, and you'll get there.
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