Life in the Background-My Story Part 3
2017 and 2018 came and went and were full of a lot of the same thing. I was in and out of PT constantly, never wanting to graduate because once I stopped the hurting would return each time with a vengeance. I would start exercise programs that I loved (running, Zumba, Werk etc.) but after a few months I would have to stop as I would start to come home from classes and workouts sobbing from being in excruciating lumbar and pelvic pain.
I started having a massage on a monthly basis to loosen my muscles which always seemed to be hard as a rock. I carried pain creams and KT tape everywhere for fear of having a flare. And I was still going a mile a minute with everything to avoid crying alone about my predicament. I even started going to graduate school online in 2018 to work toward my goal of having a Masters in Food Safety and also as an additional distraction for the constant pain I was in.
My boyfriend and I became closer and closer and he stood by my side through everything. He even took off of work in 2018 when I visited an Orthopedist at the world renowned University of Chicago for a second opinion. To my surprise the doctor looked through my MRI file and said there was not a thing wrong with my spine. This was contrary to the possible irritation that my original Orthopedist suggested to be the problem back in 2016. Although I had not gotten an MRI of my pelvic region this orthopedist thought that I likely had inflammation in my SI joints and suggested I visit a pain clinic to get injections to calm it down. I went through with the injections but they did not help but for 72 hours at most. Per usual I was discouraged and thought I must be the world’s craziest case if the University of Chicago couldn’t even figure out what was wrong.
The agony continued. I never knew when a flare up would occur and dreaded them happening during a major event. In 2018 in preparation for an annual Girls trip my high school friends took each year, I decided to take a bath the Thursday night before with a menthol, mint and eucalyptus Epsom salt blend. I had started to notice a pattern with menthol products and for some reason these often caused my muscle spasms to flare uncontrollably for several days following the application. In hopes of calming my muscles however, I figured just a small amount of this Epsom salt blend would do me some good. Boy was I wrong…
We left for the Girls trip the next day and I began to experience increasingly excruciating pain from Friday morning and continuing throughout the day. I almost decided to stay home due to the pain but pushed through because I really wanted to go on the trip. I wore my brace on the car ride which kept the pain somewhat at bay but upon arrival I had to bite my cheeks to hold back tears, aching to go to bed so I could cry/ stretch out the pain alone. I began stretching in the living room while my friends talked letting them know I was stiff from the car ride. Finally I told them I was exhausted and needed to go to bed.
Unfortunately my standard tools (stretching, strengthening, muscle rubs, Ibuprofen etc.) did nothing and I was in so much pain I couldn’t sleep either. My best friend with whom I was sharing a bed was someone I had confided in about my pain struggles but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. I never wanted to make my problems known to others. I was always one to push through the pain behind the scenes. Finally, after she was asleep I grabbed a full roll of KT tape and my phone and went into the bathroom desperately searching for a tutorial for pelvic pain. I ended up KT taping the entirety of my pelvis alone using the bathroom mirror as my only aid. Thankfully God was with me that night and the KT tape stopped the pain enough for me to finally get a few hours of rest before continuing on to a day full of wine tasting and fruit picking with my friends.
It was after this Girls Trip that I decided I would leave my Lab Technician job in December of that year to continue Graduate school as a full time student in January of 2019. When I left my job for some reason I took my work bag and placed it under my desk in my parents’ house and never touched it after that. Ironically as I began writing this post, I found it a few days ago.
The purse is of a larger size, business chique and made of a purple colored leather. It is full of standard items like an umbrella, tissues, pens, floss, hair ties, headbands and a brush. But it was also almost overflowing with the following:
-pain patches
- multiple eczema creams
-multiple pain creams
-nasal spray
-ibuprofen
-business cards from my therapist and massage therapist at the time
-yeast infection tabs
-multiple vaginal creams
-multiple hand salves
-a variety of broad spectrum homeopathic blends for cramps, acne and anxiety
-a thyroid medication
- an inhaler
-eye drops
- and even an envelope from the pain center where I had gotten those injections.
Survival supplies.
Back then I had to anticipate anything and everything. I had a great life from the perspective of any outside observer and even most inside observers. But always in the background was the nagging pain and of course the depression that lingered on despite my Prozac usage. It was the unwanted distraction extracting the life force from me, driving a wedge into everything I held dear and leaving it permanently different.
I live in the numbness now in the background
I do the things we did before.
I walk Haight Street to the store.
And they say where’s that crazy girl ya don’t get drunk one red wine and fight no more.
I don’t see you anymore.
-[The Background---Third Eye Blind]
What if I never got better? The question was creeping up in the back of my mind more and more.
I hoped in some strange way going back to school full time might give me more time to find out what was really wrong. Maybe somehow I could morph back into the me I left behind in 2015. Maybe I would find her if I just headed back to a college campus for a while.
To be continued…
Summer 2018: Me in front of the infamous Dalva Bar in San Francisco which is mentioned in the Third Eye Blind song Wounded.
