Catching Up

It has been a long long time since I updated this blog. Over a year, in fact. My last post celebrated my son's wedding, and two weeks ago, he and Anna celebrated their first anniversary. Shame on me, right?

I have an explanation, but not excuses. I don't believe in excuses.

As I stated in an earlier post, I have been down in my back since about Thanksgiving 2006. It got progressively worse until I was basically housebound. Climbing in and out of the car, walking through a store, even walking around in my house became so incredibly painful that I just stopped doing it. I couldn't sleep, I stopped going to school, I couldn't do my housework, I couldn't hug my children. I couldn't do anything. I spent a year and a half sitting in a chair, in agony.

I couldn't hug my children. Do you know how much that breaks your heart? It still makes me cry, just to write about it. It was more traumatic than I think I realized at the time.

FINALLY, my doctor and I figured it out. It was osteoarthritis, which can be genetic (my mother and sisters also have it). I'm a bit young for osteo this severe, which is what was screwing up our diagnosis. She started me on some meds that are helping. Am I 100%? No. Right now, I range between 50% and 75%, depending on the weather, how well I slept, and other factors. Hell, I'm never going to be nineteen again, no matter how many miracle pills I choke down (and thank God for that! You couldn't pay me to be that young and stupid again!). But even 50% is better than sitting in a chair and suffering.

For those who haven't been there -- and you should thank God if you haven't been -- being in that sort of constant pain is physically and mentally exhausting. You don't want to do anything; you don't have the energy. I stopped making lace -- which is something that I love to do -- I stopped sewing, I stopped the SCA (another thing I loved), I stopped playing music. I just didn't have the mental energy they required. I was probably also pretty depressed by it all, though my doctor kept me on my happy pills religiously; she knows me better than I know me, sometimes.

The only things I did do were read and write. I've been a voracious reader since I was four years old, and written stories since I was eight. I've even sold a few pieces, and worked as a contributing editor for a "little" magazine when I was in my mid-twenties. the reason I could do those things -- which take a lot of mental energy, more than you think, and something I had in short supply -- was because they were a place to hide from the pain for a little while. As long as I had my books and my little netbook computer to write on, I could ignore the pain for a little bit.

"You wrote," you say. "Why didn't you write on your blog?" Well, because blogs are journals, aren't they. They are for introspection and communication of your innermost thoughts. I didn't want to examine things too closely, because if I was examining myself, then, by definition, I couldn't hide from the pain. I would have to look at it straight on, and that was something I definitely did NOT want to do.

Hey, I never claimed to be brave.

Now that I'm on the pills, and I'm not a puddle of goo all the time, I'm doing all my fun things again, and more (OK, I'm not playing the piano; when Adam married, he took the piano with him, darn his ornery hide! But that's okay, I still have my violin and I am coveting a little lap harp). Yay me!

And I am still reading. And I am still writing, more than ever. But not to hide this time. I'm doing it because being a writer is the only thing I've ever wanted to be since I was about twelve years old and realized 1) that I had some serious talent; 2) that people actually could make a living at it, and 3) it's still the most fun thing I have ever done in my life.

Again: Yay me!