Hitting a bump in the road, or even a rock (like it feels like), can really take a toll on how you feel and your routine. The day in day out, shit that you do repeatedly, trying to get through each day. I hit that bump in the road, but for me, it's more like a cliff in the middle of the road, that's appeared from no where and decided to raise from underground, and hit me when I wasn't looking. It's fantastic - or absolutely not.
Dealing with pain has become a complete norm for me, every since a young age. Painful knees (due to a disease in them) ever since the age of six, then there's the growing pains that feel like they have never stopped, headaches/migraines since the age of like eleven? The dreaded period pains that us girls hate! Luckily, no longer experiencing them. But something I hoped and dreaded experiencing was back pain. Back pain is the worst pain of all pains, we all know it. Your back hurts and it interferes in so much of your daily life - something I knew I definitely didn't want, after watching my mum suffer with back problems for pretty much my whole life.
I felt okay with having pain and irritation in my right leg for the past 6 months, until it began to get worse and I felt like a complete cripple walking down the corridor at work, looking like one of those old people who walked hunched over - that was me, every single day. But then I couldn't bend over, I couldn't turn my head when I was trying to see if there was a car coming towards me as I pulled onto the motorway. - We all know the remedies; paracetamol, ibuprofen, freeze gel, heat gel, hot water bottles etc etc.. even physiotherapy. Yet nothing seemed to take away the pain. But that's when the pain decided to travel, right up to the place where I didn't want it to be.
One month later, following weeks of physiotherapy, an X-Ray and an MRI scan; resulting in a herniated disc in my back, bulging which is severely getting worse and urgently needing to see a spinal surgeon. Yep. You're thinking exactly what I thought when they asked me how long I'd been suffering with this pain right after my MRI finished. How can something from a pain in my leg, go to needing to see a spinal surgeon?
The past month has been tough - emotionally, mentally and physically. From managing to cope with Fibromyalgia/ME symptoms to hunting for ways to stop the pain of a bulging disc in my back, just so that I can get out of the bed in the morning and walk downstairs. Along with a huge impact on my mental health, feeling like absolute crap most of the time, having no one to turn to and being in a completely new environment and trying to cope with that alongside everything else going on.
I promised myself after leaving therapy last year that I would put my health first. Before my job, before loved ones, before everything. Because I knew I couldn't end up in a place where I didn't want to be again. Despite attempting to put my health first, and feeling crap about that; I'm back in that place I didn't want to be, but I'm okay with that. I've acknowledged it's only temporary, and I can get back out of it again, it just won't be an overnight process.
Even if you're struggling, and it feels like you're fighting a losing battle; do not give up and don't get discouraged. You will get through this.
Kimberley Jessica
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