Keep your friends close & your enemies closer.....

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

While nearly everyone has heard this familiar saying, I often wonder how many people heed the words.  I know that I have lived by this saying for more than half of my life now.  I cherish my friends, they share in my joy and happy news and lend a shoulder when I am overwhelmed or saddened.  While I greatly value our friendships and wouldn't trade them for anything; I do agree that my enemies are necessary to keep even closer.  It is fortunate that I have taken this view and come to accept it as necessary, as my ultimate enemy, the one that I have been engaged in hand-to-hand combat with, slugging it out with, having an absolute bloodbath with for the 14 years could not be any closer to me.  My enemy is with me twenty-four hours a day, 365 a year.  Do I choose to tail my enemy this closely?  Have I become some sort of stalker over the years as I got to know my enemy?  Do I have what the hipsters call a "frenemy"?  No, nothing like that.  My enemy is myself.  Every day is a battle, the rest of my life stretches out like a war. 

Early on, my doctor thought that my mind was weak, unaccepting of the injury I sustained and the fact that my competitive days were over.  I kept pushing forward, kept grinding on knowing that I had accepted that my ankle was never going to be the same AND knowing that my body was still not right, that the pain I was infused with, overcome by and being broken down by was real.  Years passed by and I kept pushing through, kept fighting on, kept looking for answers.  Finally, nearly eleven years later, my enemy was revealed and he had a name - R.S.D.  While I was elated to know my enemy, to identify him, to have a name - it was then that I realized how much my fight was really like the art of war.  I had identified my enemy, I had a name and I was ready to formulate an attack plan.  I wanted to know how to "erradicate" this enemy!  However, I would soon come to find that knowing RSD was like knowing Osama Bin Laden - you know the name, you have a photo to go with the name - but you don't have the complete history, you don't understand why it does what it does...and there is NO logic. 

One day I hope to win my war.  Not just the battles...I win most of those.  I consider each day that I rest my head on my pillow at the end of the day and close my eyes as a day that I have won.  RSD is destructive.  RSD is the most painful of all chronic pain diseases and it also has the highest suicide rate.  Not a happy pink thought - but a very real one.  It is pain that will drop your to your knees, gut you alive and squeeze all of the oxygen from your lungs.  To be able to still trudge on, maintain a full-time job, some semblance of a normal life while living everyday with this disease - that is winning battles.  My body will always be an enemy....or maybe there will be a miracle, a cure.  I don't like to think about that though.  Not a pessimist.  A survivalist. 

One other enemy that is the most destructive?  Ignorant people.  I have found that a lot of people only have sympathy, empathy, compassion or just plain manners when they are around their bestest friends, in church on Sunday or perhaps they never had any at all.  RSD is interesting...one oft repeated saying from doctor to patient is "Use or lose it", the use it being the affected limb, the lose it being the function and ability to do so if not taking said "use it" advice.  I make it a point to walk my dog, do balance exercises, yoga, pilates - anything to keep my body moving, limber, healthy and functioning.  However when people see me exercising, or the fact that I am younger, and not horribly out of shape, using a wheel chair, or with a horrid limp, they assume that I'm fine, I must not be that bad.  I am always trying to guard my right side, as is my husband.  It's an interactive football/chess game in real life.  How to strategically move the piece across the board without checkmate.  I have had to give up many of my favorite past times because they are simply not safe anymore - concerts, live music in general unless outside - but then there is that crowd factor.

As I sit here now, the skin on my hand is stretched and sore - the scar bright pink and slashed zig-zag across the top of my palm.  My ankle is twingy and throbbing, the sudden 20 degree shift in weather, while welcome, has flared it up slightly and has worn me out. 

That said, another day comes to a close.  I have won another battle.  Finished another day, look forward to another tomorrow.  I am weary, I am tired, I am aching for a change for the better...

Hostage 1198

I knew something was so disturbingly wrong before I was even able to open my eyes.  As I tried so hard to swim the the surface, to break through to the other side of consciousness, I knew that something was completely off.  As I cracked my eyes open, blurry eyed, I could just make out the uniformed guard with a shotgun in his hands, gazing at his prisoner.  How on earth did I end up in this place?  And why did it hurt so badly?

Where was I taken hostage you ask?  In all places, I woke up in a hospital, taken hostage by my own body.  I went into surgery to have a seriously messed up ankle injury fixed.  When I awoke afterwards, I was in far more pain than even the original injury caused.  I drifted off to sleep in a sleepy, haze as I counted backwards from 100; and awoke to the feeling of lava surging through my ankle.  The pain was so intense, so searing and deep, cutting, to the bone, unlike anything I had ever felt in my life.  I begged them for some relief and was confused as to why I would feel so much worse.  The vibrations of the road on the drive home sent waves of nausea coursing through my body, the bass line coming off a nearby car sent tears streaming down my cheeks.

My doctor told me that it was the bone settling, that there was a lot of pain  associated with the bone reconstruction.  I was told then, after a year went by that I needed to get a grasp on the fact that I was no longer going to be the skater that I was before the accident; and that alone can be a powerful, painful realization that could be coming out.  I knew that wasn't the case.  I have always known my body very well, known when I was injured badly, or rather could keep skating on something, and this was certainly something different.  It took years, more than 10 years to find a doctor that would have the answers.  And even after I would find out the name for what it was I was feeling...there still was a lot of confusion as to what unlocked it and truly caused it.  Really, that still hasn't been answered to this day.

It's funny, I was so relieved to have a name for it, then to find out there was no cure was devastating.  Now, I'm still trying to figure out where it was that was most frustrating difficult, hard to deal with.

Once upon a time....

Once upon a time there was a girl that twirled on a sheet of ice, could balance on a quarter-inch blade as if she were born too...and maybe she was. From the age of 4 until 26 skating was the dominating force in her life. She ate, slept, dreamed and day-dreamed about skating. Every song she heard was a skating routine in her head, every available free space an opportunity to practice a jump, a leap, a spin. Even after her competitive years came to a close there was the joy of coaching and passing along the skills and passion that she had for her sport, her craft to others of all ages. Life was a fairy tale really - she seemed like the girl featured in the book -the lucky girl that would get the prince, live happily ever after and have all her dreams come true. Life would be kind, happy and really, bad things don't happen to these girls in fairy tales. Who could have seen what would happen next?

Was it the wicked witch - an evil skating coach that sabotaged her you might ask? No, not that. Was it a horrid little kid that acted out in the most horrid way? Again, no, not that. That girl that skated and twirled with such abandon, such freedom and passion; she was taken hostage. Who you ask? Well, that took some time to uncover... In fact, it took over 11 years to truly figure out what was at the heart of the matter, but the true who has yet to be uncovered and it's now going on 14+ years.

Does this story have a happy ending? Does the prince arrive in time to rescue the hostage? Well, fairy tales are just that - fairy tales. They are fables, stories and while they might be entertaining...they are not real life. This is. But I am hopeful for a happy ending. But the hard truth is bad things happen to good people.

Let's start at the beginning....