"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...
