Limitations and boundaries

If my body is the vessel with which I must travel through life, then it is wise to not only take care of it's maintance. Being aware of it's capacity is perhaps even more important as to not wear it down whilst living life in the fast lane.

Two weeks of hard work in rehab have been comparable to training for the Olympics (if you put it in the right perspective). At the end of the week my body is so extremely tired that I can hardly do my exercises. The question is: "how much exercise makes you better and how much sets you back a couple of days". It is a matter of knowing ones boundaries! I have not been too good at that the past years. I lived in pain, accepting it as a part of my life.
Pain is something you get accustomed to.

The trick right now is to learn to feel when I have had enough. Crossing this boundary actually results in me feeling pain that only a little while ago I would not have perceived. My limitations are becoming apparent to me.

My physical therapy session turned into at psychology session yesterday (Friday). When, worn out after a whole week of exercise, I finally realized how I had managed to deal with the pain all those years. The trick was compensation!

If you tighten your muscles around the area where the pain is...you instantly relieve the pain. If you tighten your muscles all day long it leads to a continuous waste of energy. (No wonder I thought I had ME).
The realization that I have been doing this for years on end hit me like a ton of bricks. The pain that I could no longer deal with this week was much less intense than what I have been handling for the passed 3 years. Right now this pain is almost unbearable.

I am still managing on minimal medication though. And slowly, I am coming to terms with the fact that there may be many things which I will never be able to do again. I seem to be able to accept this, but all the things Kiara and I wanted to do together in the future (hang-gliding, snow-boarding, entering pyramids etc. etc.) will have to be re-evaluated. Today I tried to explain this to Kiara who did not understand how her mother could break a promise, as a promise is always a promise in this house-hold. I tried to tell her that we are lucky. Lucky enough to celebrate life, which a little while back was not quite certain. It is the bitter truth. When I asked her if she had cried about me in the past months, she said she had not. Tonight she came downstairs after I had put her to bed. She came to tell me that she had cried about me being sick tonight. I told her crying was a good thing to do. She looked at me in a puzzled manner. I then explained that you often feel better after you have cried.

How ironic! Now that I am accepting my fate, my daughter is not.