Pushing Through

Yesterday, before my pain treatment, I finished beaming the blue/green/grey warp.  Since my neck and shoulder were the areas that he was going to focus on, I figured I might not want to be doing the cranking involved in finishing the beaming.  And I was right.  I didn't.

The doctor has been kind and thorough.  We talk a lot about how things are going and he assures me everything I'm going through is in fact, 'normal'.  That at times it will feel worse before it gets better.

Yesterday he said something that I didn't take in immediately, partly because of the fact that all of my life, for as long as I can remember, I have pushed through.

There really isn't a time in my life that I remember feeling 'well'.  As a child, I slept on a feather pillow.  Turns out I'm allergic to feathers.  So every morning I would wake up feeling thick headed and congested.  I learned early to push through that muzzy headedness.

My elementary school years (grade 5/6) I had multiple tonsillitis infections.  Multiple times on antibiotics (and thank goodness they were there).  When I was 12 I finally had them removed, but again later I discovered that is also a symptom of allergies.  Which went undiagnosed until my 30s.

As I got older I had the usual assortment of childhood injuries - nothing very major.  But also dance lessons, straining muscles.  As a teenager came the car accidents and whiplash injuries.  Two major ones - one at 18, one at 44.

Other things happened, too.  Because Life Happens.  I became self-employed.  If I was sick for a show, I worked it sick.  In pain?  Work through it because deadlines.  Et bloody cetera.

All of my life?  I pushed through.  Because that is what you did.  What I did. 

I pushed through the cardiac issues.  The cancer.  Repeat cardiac, this time major surgery.  Repeat cancer.  Merry-go-round, not so very merry, though.

Last autumn I reached my limit.  I asked for help - a referral to a pain specialist.  I got in to see one within a couple of weeks.

It hasn't been a walk in the park.  It is a 'short term pain for long term gain' kind of thing.  But it is working.  I am better.  I can think again.  I can function again.  Not back to 'normal' but much improved over where I was in November.

Yesterday, working on my neck/shoulder, the locus of the longest term injury, I felt light headed.  When I sat up he warned me that if I was I needed to sit and wait until the feeling passed.  I did sit up and I was light headed.  My normal inclination would have been to push through it.  Stand up.  Be strong.  But his warning made me stop.  Gave me permission to wait until the feeling settled.  Until I was stable again.

When I mentioned that normally I would have pushed through, he said no, don't push through.  I said I had pushed through all of my life.  He gave me a sympathetic look and quietly commented that there is a time when you should not push through, and that I should not push through now.

While I didn't think too much about that at the time, the words have stuck with me.  And I realized this morning that the past year has been an exercise in not pushing through.  Making decisions to ease the weight on my shoulders.  Because they were tired.  They are, in fact, injured.  From all the pushing through on top of actual injury. 

During counselling sessions a few decades ago, I was asked what would happen if I put the weight of all my worries down and walked away.  Because a lot of what I was dealing with wasn't even my burden.  I had taken on the weight of other people's troubles.  What would happen if I simply let that go and walked away.

It was another case of not being able to absorb what that meant and I said that I didn't know.  I didn't know I could actually do that, and I didn't know what would happen if I did.  I was told to go home and think about it.

It was a lesson I slowly absorbed and over the past few months I have been putting that lesson into practice.

Too much weight to bear?  Let go of what I can.  So I let go of the business.  It wasn't fun anymore.  It was too much of a burden.

But I was also still dealing with long term injury and chronic pain that was eroding my life in so many ways.  So I asked for help with it, and got it.

I am making different choices now.  I am picking and choosing my battles.  I am working - I hope - to help other people, in whatever way I can.  Which doesn't feel like much, but...

When people asked me what I would do when I was retired, I said I didn't know but it would come to me.  It would still be weaving - I have a brand new loom that I want to get my money's worth out of!  I would still write.  I would continue to (over) share my experiences.  My mother would be mortified at how much I reveal of the struggles I face.  OTOH, many people have thanked me for being so open and honest about living with chronic issues.  When I told my doctor yesterday that I share on my blog, he commented that other people can benefit from learning about how others are also dealing with Life Happening.

Over the years I have, from time to time, 'ghost' woven for other weavers.  So far this year I have woven one sample for one person, and agreed to weave samples for another.  That yarn will arrive in the next 10 days.

For that all I need is the Fanny, so I will unbury it.  It is currently behind a wall of boxes and bins - because I needed to move them somewhere and I wasn't currently weaving on that loom.

With the pandemic, I have no idea if the Olds classes will go ahead or not.  I am remaining optimistic and continuing to prepare for them.  And we will just have to wait and see how things go.

There are events all over being cancelled and people are being urged to not congregate.  The college may decide to cancel the classes. 

This may be a time to globally not push through.