{"id":6030,"date":"2019-03-19T08:24:10","date_gmt":"2019-03-19T12:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=6030"},"modified":"2019-03-19T08:24:10","modified_gmt":"2019-03-19T12:24:10","slug":"siege-of-poor-health-bad-luck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=6030","title":{"rendered":"Siege of Poor Health & Bad Luck"},"content":{"rendered":"

On February 10 I got the bad cold that\u2019s been going around.\u00a0 <\/span>I had it for two weeks.\u00a0 <\/span>Then I developed an endless cough.\u00a0 <\/span>The cold was over, and there wasn\u2019t any infection.\u00a0 <\/span>The doctor prescribed an inhaler that\u2019s used for asthma, and it helped a lot.\u00a0 <\/span>But by the time the cough diminished, I had developed a muscle spasm in my right hip, and my sacrum was affected.\u00a0 <\/span>It hurt too much to walk far, so I had them deliver dinner to my room.\u00a0 <\/span>For which I\u2019m extremely grateful.\u00a0 <\/span>I saw a woman, who is very good, for physical therapy.\u00a0 She’s an independent practitioner, with an office up the road. \u00a0She said it made sense that the cough could have caused something like that, which was comforting. \u00a0<\/span>What she did felt good, but it still hurt the next day.\u00a0 <\/span>She said it would take 3 days.\u00a0 <\/span>But the fourth day whatever was wrong with my sacrum suddenly got worse.\u00a0 <\/span>I could barely walk.\u00a0 <\/span>Back to my doctor, who prescribed a muscle relaxant and PT.\u00a0 <\/span>At first the muscle relaxant didn\u2019t help \u2014 I thought it would help with the pain, but I also needed to take a painkiller.\u00a0 <\/span>Because I was having pains down the outside of my leg, I found it very difficult to sleep.\u00a0 <\/span>They gave me some patches that could be put right over the affected area.\u00a0 <\/span>Thank god, I could sleep!\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

The woman from PT here at Kendal came to my room \u2014 again enormous gratitude that there’s someone right here \u2014 she did some work on my lower back, and gave me some exercises.\u00a0 <\/span>She also said I should be walking a little, and increasing it a little a day.\u00a0 <\/span>The first day I did the exercises once, and took a short walk outside.\u00a0 <\/span>The next day I did the exercises three times and did three short walks.\u00a0 <\/span>That seemed to help, so I did it again the next day.\u00a0 <\/span>But it must have been too much because the other side of my sacrum began to hurt, and again I could only walk very slowly.\u00a0 <\/span>My pattern is to push too hard and do too much, so I\u2019m working on trying to discern how much to do.\u00a0 <\/span>Also working on patience and acceptance.\u00a0 <\/span>Very difficult.<\/p>\n

I went back and read Ram Dass\u2019s book Still Here<\/a>, about his experiences after a stroke.\u00a0 <\/span>He had to learn a lot of difficult things.\u00a0 <\/span>He called it \u201cfierce grace.\u201d<\/p>\n

This morning a young woman came to walk Mocha, and Mocha was impossible.\u00a0 <\/span>Barked and barked and ran away.\u00a0 <\/span>I have no idea what\u2019s going on for her.\u00a0 <\/span>She\u2019s been barking much more than she ever did, and I don\u2019t know how to make her stop.\u00a0 <\/span>I feel terrible and frustrated that I don\u2019t know what to do.\u00a0 <\/span>I actually sat here crying for a little bit.<\/p>\n

I guess I just have to accept that I can\u2019t handle this, accept that I can\u2019t get Mocha to stop barking, accept that I have no idea why the other side of my sacrum is now hurting, that it\u2019s possible that I pushed too hard \u2014 well, it\u2019s just a really tricky balance.\u00a0 <\/span>I have to forgive myself for having difficulty, find some compassion for myself.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m doing the best I can.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s not good enough, but that\u2019s simply got to be OK.\u00a0 <\/span>There must be tons of people out there who are also caught in this frustrating place.<\/p>\n

From \u201cTattoos on the Heart<\/a>\u201d: \u201cGod looks beyond our fault and sees our need.\u201d p52.\u00a0 <\/span>I see that I\u2019m back with the \u201cone false move\u201d god.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m angry at myself for hurting, for not knowing exactly how much to exercise, for not being able to find compassion for myself, for being angry at Mocha for barking, and then angry at myself that I don\u2019t know how to stop her, and hurt because she\u2019s not spending a lot of time next to me, and she must dislike my energy…<\/p>\n

I’ve actually gotten pretty good at hanging out with emotional pain, and finding compassion for myself. \u00a0At this point I have a pretty good idea where the painful feelings are coming from. \u00a0Physical pain is another story. \u00a0I have a very hard time with not knowing why things are happening. \u00a0Both lack of control and helplessness are major triggers for PTSD. \u00a0In this struggle with my body, I’ve hit the place where I don’t know what is going on and don’t know what to do about it, and I freak out. \u00a0I also think I’ve regressed to an earlier state and lost all my new and more functional coping skills. \u00a0I’m very grateful that I’m in a place where so much help is available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On February 10 I got the bad cold that\u2019s been going around.\u00a0 I had it for two weeks.\u00a0 Then I developed an endless cough.\u00a0 The cold was over, and there wasn\u2019t any infection.\u00a0 The doctor prescribed an inhaler that\u2019s used … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,11,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","category-present-day","category-trauma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}