Acceptance of My Life

Learning how to live with difficulty, emotional or physical, is not easy. It all has to do with your mindset. What you believe, you will achieve.

I have managed to have a life filled with various challenges, and I am still here, a little battered and bruised, but still here. If you learn to listen to what your soul tells you it needs, you can learn to live with anything. I have come to see that for myself in my lifetime. I have managed to live with a lot of shit, good and bad. I am sure you have too! All we need is a little incentive!

When it comes to my physical ailments, especially the mobility issues I have, I came to see I can’t change any of them, so might as well learn to live with them and find new ways of doing things, and I did for many years, even managed to work a very physically demanding job! I do know the work I did, did wear out my joints a bit faster, but it’s all good to me. Back when I broke my legs in 1991, I was told I would end up in a wheelchair in 10 yrs, but that didn’t happen, as 31 yrs later I am still walking on my own 2 feet! I know my body, and what I can take, better than any doctor. I do take their advice tho, just do not always take it to heart! I learned to live with my mobility issues, I am sure I can learn to live with emotional issues too! I already have in various situations, and I know I can deal with this too!

In 2013, just before I had my last surgery to remove cancerous lesions, I had a headache for just over 3 months and nothing would get rid of it. I was referred to a neurologist who told me after numerous tests and scans, that it is stress related and that all I had to do to eliminate my stress. I was living and working for a great company, in a beautiful building and we were doing a lot of renovations to all the hallways but we were short-staffed, as it was just myself and hubby there.

We were on call 24/7 for over 5 months there! It was hard for a while and being told my cancer was back and I needed extensive surgery this time and would need to be off work for 3 months of recovery time, did not help. But, with the help of the management, we worked it out and I got the time off and they hired someone to replace me for a few months, and it worked out great.

During my recovery time, my headache went away and still has not returned. I don’t get headaches anymore since that time!!  I went back to work for them, but after being off so long, I couldn’t get back into the groove of it anymore and ended up leaving a few months later and taking an independent position in an office for a while, till the cervical stenosis got me in 2015. The previous company even rented an apartment to us for a year while I adjusted to this new thing and learned to live with it. Then we moved to Kennedy and while it was a shitshow there, I still learned a lot about human nature.

I will never regret any of my choices, as they taught me a lot, not just about myself, but also about others.

Being told I have cervical spinal stenosis was one of the hardest diagnoses I got, even of cancer and my bad legs, as it will eventually lead to total paralysis for me of the neck down. My bad legs don’t matter in that scenario, as I won’t be able to walk anyway. Accepting this is very hard. Knowing I will be dependent on my husband for everything will not be easy, but if he says he is up for it, then so am I. My husband is very healthy and still very active. He does things for me now that I can’t do for myself anymore! I saw 2 surgeons in Toronto about it, only to be told by both that they can’t operate as to where it is, they could paralyze me as a result and they would rather I get there on my own.

So I have numbness and burning pain from the left side of my neck into my left arm and hand. I take gabapentin for the nerve pain and it works well for that. My pinky and ring finger are numb and useless. I have cut myself, even burned myself, and didn’t even know it till later.

I broke my left ankle a couple of months ago and didn’t use any pain meds, as the numbness is going down into my left leg and I didn’t feel any real pain. My left side is on its way out and sometimes feels like it is not mine. This stenosis affects all aspects of my bodily functions, from incontinence to drooling out of the left side of my mouth at times. It is hard but always manageable. I will beat it, like I do everything else, with determination and constant vigilance.  Learning to adjust to what it gives me is something I will deal with every day and I am okay with that.

This result will take a long time to happen, as disc degeneration in your neck is a really slow process and as they shrink and collapse on each other, the nerve roots coming out of them, get pinched. This pinching of my nerves is what causes issues, but eventually, the nerves will get so pinched, that they will die and the pain will go away. Once the pain goes away, I know my extremities will start to quit working for me.

I see an Orthopedic Specialist next week so I will see what I need to do to maintain the mobility that I do have at the moment and see how long I can keep it. Knee replacements, hips replacements, I don’t care what it takes for me to be able to still drive and walk around this beautiful scenery I live in! I will do it all, anything I need to!

It works the same way for my mental health issues and PTSD. I will do whatever it takes, for me to live the rest of my life with peace of mind. I look forward to many more good experiences coming my way and I am open to new and wonderful things! 

Anything is manageable, as long as you can accept and learn to live with it. I am living with it.

If I want any kind of life, what choice do I have? I will never give up, or give in. I love living too much!

The same goes for mental distress. If you want to get better and are willing to do the work needed to get there, you can get to a place where it is all manageable. I know I will never be all healed, physically or mentally, but I am able to maintain it and that is good enough for me. I live in gratitude, always. It allows me to appreciate what I have and can do, not what I can’t.

Maintenance allows me to stay on top of my issues and the tricks I have learned this past few years help me stay focused on the here and now. Forget about the past, it is over, don’t think about tomorrow, it isn’t here yet so you don’t know what it will hold. All you have is today. Make it matter and make it count. I try every day, to make it count!

With today, you have a lot. It is 10 am here now so I know I have the day to do as I please. I plan on doing not much of anything today, as the weekend was so exciting! I need a recovery day and will take it. Why not?

I truly do not mind spending so much time alone. It gave me the chance to really get to know myself and what I need to live a full and happy life. I spent the past couple of months mostly by myself and I enjoyed it. I have taken the time I needed, for myself, and feel so much better for it.

I am loving my life and I love where I live!