Not Emily’s….  Although she has pain… 

Some she can identify and explain and many she can’t identify or explain. 

Pain is not something she feels the way we do…  

I have to recognize symptoms and eliminate what’s not hurting her to help identify what’s bugging her. 

It’s an art and after 16.5 years of practicing… I’m pretty good at it!

But today… I’m hurting… Physically hurting. 

The weather is warm, it’s raining and the snow is melting so… I’m hurting. 

My elbows, wrists, fingers, knees, ankles, lower back and… Well… When so many joints are hurting, you get tensed and suddenly the shoulders and neck aren’t doing so good either. 

I carry extra weight which is not helping my case. 

I liked sport till the end of 6th grade. I was in ballet, swimming and figure skating than my left knee went bad…

Look at me! 

 

When you have a bad knee, you use your back in ways you shouldn’t. 

I was still managing all of this without taking pain medication. 

 I’m still managing it all without pain medication but on days like today… It’s difficult. 

When Emily came along… New pain showed up. 

100% of my induced 11 hours and 24 minutes of contractions were felt in my lower back. 

That didn’t help!

My gorgeous little girl didn’t start walking till she was 4 years old…

Picking her up and getting her in and out of my car…  Not easy on one’s back!

Living away from family, not having relief other than ourselves, spending every available minutes caring for Emily, doing her PT and OT and trying to feed her while doing our best to stay on top of everything else that needed done didn’t allow us any time to take care of ourselves. 

Fast forward to now…

I signed up for Yoga in January. Once a week, I go to class for 1 hour. I’ve missed only 2 classes so far. Once because of work, once because we were all sick!

I keep thinking I should skip, I have so many other things to do but I drive there… I change into my yoga clothes and relax, work hard and relax again. 

I love it. 

But every week I have to talk myself into going. 

I have to move some of the focus back to me but this is much harder now.

I use to think I would always be my first priority but somehow moved myself down the priority list without knowing. 

So this year, I’m going to yoga… I’m going to make a doctor’s appointment to talk about my painful joints and ask him about this lovely tropical island I’ve been living on for the last couple of years :). 

You know which island I’m talking about. 🙂  

I bring my own tropical paradise with me everywhere I go. 

I’m always warm and sometimes… It’s really warm… Like hot flash warm…  

Mom says I should look into that. 

Mom knows best right?