Another Fight

Someone asked me today what they should do if life is just too overwhelming. When you hurt, and depressed, and you’ve been kicked down so many times by life that you can’t remember not being in the mud… I’m not sure I have an answer for that.

It’s a good question though. The very same question led me to make a list of medical problems and finally go have a sit down with my new doctor to try to get pro-active with my health. I don’t like asking for help. I especially don’t like going in for medical things because I feel that a normal person has a body that does repairs on its own. You cut yourself, the body heals it up. Boom and done. No extra help needed.

But my health hit a point this summer where it’s frightening me how bad it is. Even with physical therapy my mobility is limited. Even with my iron pills and migraine meds my iron levels are plummeting and my migraines are getting worse. I know the trigger is stress, but I can’t really reduce the stress in my life, because life is stressful. So, I went in, expecting a lecture on healthy eating and a list of exercises to try.

Instead, the doctor peppered me with questions. When was the last MRI on my head? What tests for inflammation had been done? What other drugs had I tried?

The answer was never, none, and none. My previous doctors either weren’t educated well enough to handle my condition, or didn’t care enough to do any more than prescribe a pill. My last doctor had been particularly bad, and it took changing doctors to get a referral to physical therapy.

This doctor stared at me in confusion. Four years of migraines and not a single MRI? He said it’s unheard of.

Here’s the thing… four years ago I started having migraines that incapacitated me for 2-3 days at a time. They left me unable to cook, eat, drive, walk in sunlight, listen to music, or even talk to people because the pain was so bad. And, for four years, I accepted that as my base line for health. Migraines, usually one or two a week, lasting 36-48 hours. That’s on me.

I let my poor health throw me into the mud and I stayed there because it was easier to take the pill and not question WHY? until the migraines started endangering the lives of others (my vision started blurring this summer… not a good thing!).

The good news is… I’m not dead yet. Which means I still have the option to get out of the mud and punch life in the nads.

And that is my answer. If you aren’t dead, you get back up and fight. It doesn’t matter how broken you are. It doesn’t matter how much you hurt. It doesn’t matter that you can’t win. You can make the bastard (in this case Life and Ehlers-Danlos and migraines and bad health in general) pay. You might lose in the end, but you will make it a Pyrrhic Victory. And you’ll do it every time someone takes you down. Because anything else is being dead while your heart is still beating.