Good News

This is a case where I am saying it is good news to trick myself into believing it. 🙂

First, some background information.

Eight years ago I was working grounds for BYU. I worked in the horticultural garden, and one June day they asked us to spray the weeds in the garden. If I remember right, it is a two acre garden. I had a four gallon back pack weed sprayer that I was filling and lifting over and over again for four hours. That resulted in severely injuring my back and right shoulder and 3-4 months of intense pain. Workers Comp. only allowed so much physical therapy, and then the hassle of getting doctor visits cleared through them was so bad that I didn’t go back when I probably should have. I remember spending nights lying on the floor trying to breathe as shallowly as possible so that my lungs wouldn’t make the muscles in my back move.

My back and shoulder had been livable since then, but that was because I’d made adjustments in how I live to accommodate them.

Five years ago I started noticing that my shoulder was sore at the end of the day. But it wasn’t until two years ago that I realized that soreness probably wasn’t normal and I started going back to the doctor. I’ve had x-rays, MRIs, radio-frequency lesioning (my insurance lists it as “destruction” on the form), and physical therapy.

Yesterday the physical therapist asked how I was doing. I told him that honestly, the progress there is, is so slow I often wonder if I’ll die before it gets better. He said there was some truth to that actually. I’ve lived with the pain for so long it is probably never going to go away. The best I can hope for is being able to have a better quality of life where I manage the pain rather than it managing me.

I can’t help but wonder if I’d had different treatment 8 years ago when I severely injured the muscles in my back and right shoulder if things would be different now. I’m almost positive that if I’d had some form of physical therapy after injuring my knee over ten years ago my knee would be practically normal now, but I didn’t have any physical therapy back then.

At least I have the resurrection to look forward to.

So the good news is that I can either stop hoping the pain goes away in this life, or that it will be gone in the next.

UPDATE:

Nov 20^th, 2006, 5:34pm
Today at physical therapy he told me I have a difficult problem. I think I threw him for a loop when I told him that my back all day yesterday was spasming and it felt like someone was trying to compress my spine. My doctor only prescribed 12 physical therapy sessions, and today was #10. I think my therapist would like me to come back some more though. I’ll have to see how much my insurance will allow. He wants to get me a home e-stim. thingy and a traction thing for my neck as well. And he’s started working on my right shoulder, which will really help as well. So I’m still really screwed up, probably will be till I die, but I’m doing better with that fact.

But yesterday, I got some perspective. At the last minute they needed me to go help with Primary at the Tiny Tots home in my neighborhood, a home for severely disabled children. The whole time I was there, singing songs with them and pushing them around the hall in their wheel chairs, I couldn’t help but think just how pathetic I am that I was that upset by my small problem. Compared to their bodies, mine works great. I really have nothing to complain about. That doesn’t mean I probably won’t complain again. But that hit in the head with the perspective was well timed.