courage needed

Jan 18, 2014

Pain, frustration, shaking, weakness, a new injury, and some tears filled my day yesterday.

I want to live this mantra –

Gird up your loins, fresh courage take, Our God will never us forsake.

and I will.

Someday.

Hopefully today or tomorrow I will be able to take fresh courage into the marrows of my bones and decide once again to keep trying.

But right now I need to cry.

I scooped an injured, crying little girl up into my arms at gym yesterday and carried her across the gym to her mama. And then I knew – something was very, very wrong. Who knew that something so seemingly small could hurt me so dramatically?

It appears my pubic symphysis, the cartilage that holds the two halves of the pubic bone together, has separated or torn. It is going to take some time to heal and until it does I am going to be even more loose than normal. Yesterday when Jeremy was putting me back together, my pubic bone was “missing,” meaning we couldn’t find it. Neither one of us could find the bone! He was finally able to put it back into place (or close to its correct place) by pushing up through the back of my pelvis. Let me tell you, painful is the understatement of the year to describe what it feels like to have your pubic bone moved by way of your butt.

Then it got worse. The femoral nerve, my lovely nerve that has spent the past many months irritated at all the poking, pinching, and stretching it has had to endure, runs right next to said pubic bone and moving that bone kickstarted the nerve into freak-out mode.

Yes, the shaking started all over again. It lasted a long, miserable hour. When my systems were all calmed down, Kat came to my rescue. I couldn’t walk, drive, or function at that point, so she drove 30 minutes into town to get me. Superhero is what that girl is. When they tried to stand me up from the table, the shaking started all over again, so they wheeled me out to the van on an office chair and hoisted me inside as gently as they could. I’m sure it was quite the hilarious spectacle, but I wasn’t quite up to laughing. All I could do was cry at the pain. Cry in frustration at having to heal another injury. Cry at the inconvenience I am to everyone around me. Cry at the seeming hopelessness of my body.

The timeline of the last two years ran in circles around my mind all night long making me feel like one of those lab rats stuck in an unsolvable maze – they learn helplessness and stop trying to escape. I don’t want to be like those rats. I must find fresh courage. I must keep trying. I just don’t know if I have it in me.

2/20/2012: Severe, deep groin pain that can’t handle any weight bearing and puts me in bed for six weeks.

3/27/2012: MRA diagnoses labral tear

4/18/2012: First Prolozone injection

4/2012 – 1/2013: Lots of Prolo, lots of pain, lots of healing, lots of tears, lots of progress.

1/8/2013: Final injection, allergic reaction to procaine, seizures, syncope, and all-out misery.

1/9/2013 – 1/31/2013: IVs, hundreds of seizures, heaps of love and service poured out on my family, and weeks spent in bed.

2/1/2013 – 11/15/2013: Many, many shaking/passing out episodes and lots of helping hands to pick me up and rescue me each time.

7/3/2013: Fall while cleaning the shower and break the 4th metatarsal bone in my foot. PT is focused on helping my injured hip deal with the imbalance and instability of having a broken foot on one side and an injured hip on the other. Can’t be non-weight bearing on broken foot because my hip can’t handle my full weight. Sixteen weeks in a boot and pain, pain, pain. Hip healing is set back five months while body heals foot. Emotional roller coaster up, down, and all-around from the pain, the hopelessness, and the reality of how much this body is costing us in time, money, energy, and everything else.

7/3/2013 – 11/15/2013: Seizures and passing out increases greatly as my body adjusts to first being in the boot and then getting out of the boot.

10/28/2013: Transfer from walking boot to super-stiff shoes so my foot can continue to heal. Super exciting! Find out I must wear shoes for many months before I can transition into normal shoes and this process will take 1-2 years, eeek.

11/25/2013: Make it out into the big room at physical therapy and am given actual exercises to do at home. Wahoo!

12/2013: Make tons of progress building muscles, allow a miracle to happen in my life with Moola For Muscles, cry piles of happy tears at the goodness in the world, discover my feet are compensating for the hip/core weakness and start retraining my brain to fire the core muscles, work hard and consistently on healing. Full of hope. Make a huge decision to completely let go of fear of re-injury of the labrum and proceed with faith that exercising is going to help my body heal. Decide to trust the journey even if the labrum does re-tear.

1/2014: Do amazingly well at therapy and at home with my exercises, getting stronger each day.

1/12/2014: Slip on the ice and end up almost in the splits. Pull lots of muscles and flare everything in the pelvis.

1/15/2014: Jeremy puts me all back together and I feel really good, especially considering the damage done just a few days prior.

1/17/2014: Separate the cartilage in my pubic bone by picking up a little five-year-old girl. Full on sympathetic nervous system response occurs when the bone is put back into place. No exercise until it heals and my nervous system calms down again.

The labral tear, the sympathetic nervous system freak-outs, the broken foot, and now another separated piece of cartilage with no options for Prolozone because of the allergy to procaine.

Oh my. I just don’t know if I have it within me to heal another injury. Actually, I know I DON’T. I am so incredibly worn out by this roller coaster ride. It is endless and has twists and turns I never saw coming and don’t know how to prepare for, deal with, or heal from.

But I know my God has courage to give me. I know He has healing and strength and peace.

And all I can do is plead for Him to fill me with what I need.

Fresh courage take. Pray for that, please.