I know how you feel. I’ve been there. Frustration. Hopelessness. Never-ending aching pain that robs you of life’s essence itself. Endless doctor appointments. People confused by your daily ups and down. No one understands. No matter what you do, nothing ever changes.
Let me stop you right there. There is hope. I am proof of that.
Believe me, the answer’s not pretty. The recovery does’t happen over night. But I guarantee you there is a way to fight back and live a normal life.
Bob Marley said, “You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.” He understood that every single one of us goes through this process at some time in our life. Most people learn what it’s like to live with chronic pain in their final act- pain leads to diagnosed disease leads to more pain that ends in a last breath. They find out too late what you already know, that life is precious and much too short. How lucky are we that we to learn this truth now so that we can live life to the fullest?
Every recovering sufferer has a pivotal moment in the depth of their fall where they start to climb out of the darkest. For me, this happened when I learn of my step-father’s passing. Pancreatic cancer is a vicious assassin that strikes quickly and without mercy. Now I am driving to drive to Northern California to be with my mother and, with the help of my sisters, figure out a thousand details.
It’s worse than I could have imagined. She has her own health problems to contend with, and it becomes clear that she isn’t able to take care of herself in her current condition.
I am overwhelmed. I am in pain and fighting chronic fatigue and headaches and nerve pain stabbing me with a thousand needles from within. But I have to dig deep and find the strength to be strong for her. I have no other choice but to suck it up and get through this.
It becomes clear that I need to bring my mother home with me, so we pack up what we can and head south. Half way through the nine hour drive, I receive for the second time in a week the phone call no one wants to receive. My half-brother from Oklahoma died that morning. Are you kidding? Really, God? Isn’t it enough that you’ve already stretched me to my breaking point? But I don’t break. The strange thing is the news only strengthens my resolve. I will grieve later. For now, I have no choice but to be strong.
How could I know this decision would be the turning point in my life?
“I never saw a wild thing feeling sorry for itself…,” D.H. Lawrence writes in his celebrated poem. How true his words ring in my heart. I spent years feeling sorry for myself, lost in a maze of negativity that sent me spiraling ever downward. Now that I have to be strong for someone else, I feel empowered. Something inside is coming back to life. I realize and accepted a single fact that ended up being the key to my freedom.
Ready for it?
Here it is in three parts. 1) I am sick. 2) I will always be sick. 3) Being sick is better than being dead.
The realization washes over me like a Protestant baptism.
I live in pain every day of my life. Sometime I crash. That’s okay. I make the most of the time that is given to me. I exercise. I eat right. I reduce stress and anxiety as much as possible.
What I want you to understand is how much control you have over your mind and how much control your mind has over your body. Realize that pain is subject to the moment. I rarely remember how my pain felt yesterday. I only know how the pain feels now. I’ll deal with tomorrow’s pain later.
It’s not easy. I still stumble. I still fall. When attacked by a virus or exhausted from bout of insomnia, I fall back into the habit of negative thinking. That’s when I practice positive self-talk. “You can make it…It can’t hurt any worse than this….Pain is a part of being alive.”
I’m over a year into my recovery. I’ve lost fifty pounds. I’ve been able to start coaching again. In short, I’ve been able to start living again.