It occurs to me that I try to always be positive and show the bright side of life in my blog posts, but the truth is that I don’t feel like that all of the time. I do feel like that most of the time, so I do think that this blog is a good representation of my thoughts at any given time, but I would feel remiss if I didn’t write a blog post when I was feeling blue.
Oh, and happy New Year everyone!
Why is it that my new year is not starting out so happy? Arthritis… I think… or at least my doctor thinks. For the past year or so, I have been getting an excruciating pain in my foot every once in awhile. When I saw my doctor, she said that she thought it was arthritis. The way to know for sure would be to do an X-ray, but she also said that it wouldn’t change the treatment: physical therapy.
I saw a physical therapist a few times, and she gave me a handful of stretches to keep my joints free from the calcification of arthritis. Oops! I kind of slacked off, and eventually forgot about the stretches altogether.
Many people have resolutions to exercise more in a new year. Even though I stopped making resolutions when I found that I wasn’t following through on most of them, I still wanted to start off the new year exercising a lot to help manage my weight and blood pressure. The thing is, I forgot about the stretches that the PT gave me, and the arthritis returned.
So here I am in pain, unable to exercise, and bound to sitting or walking with a cane. I have been popping acetaminophen every 4 to 6 hours, and my lovely wife has been running around getting things for me. I did manage to hobble myself upstairs for lunch and dinner, but I have another restless night to look forward to, tossing and turning, trying to find a position that does not exacerbate the pain in my foot.
I guess the point is that life is not all peaches for me (I am still doing dialysis after all). I sometimes feel like I am in the body of a 70-year-old with all of my health issues, and it can be hard to see the light. But at least I have this blog to write down my thoughts. Maybe I should get a journal, so I am not publicly airing all of my negative thoughts, but I feel that would be cheating myself.
Not that I am planning on promoting this blog post. I will maybe just post it and let people wander across it if they ever come to check out my blog. I don’t think that I will even post this article to my Twitter feed, my least followed of all social media. I guess I just wanted to get some things off my chest.