@ThatFLGuy It’s good to sit back and take stock once in a while. Me too; I hope the next five years are better for both you and I and everyone else on the forum.
For me the past 14 years have been a hellacious roller coaster except the coaster never gets to the fun highs, just the scary drops and bottoming out lows. I had some major health stuff go wrong way back then that I’ve never even talked about on this forum before because it belongs on a different forum(s). But that stuff pretty much ruined the rest of my life for me.
I’ve had Neurogenic Bladder for nine years now, which in some ways feels like 30 years and in other ways feels like two years. What a long, dreadful journey. Most days I can’t believe I’m still alive and don’t understand why I am. Except for no longer dating (which is a huge change for the worse in my life), incontinence is the least of my worries. The hole in my heart giving me an 80% increased risk of stroke and daily migraines and my anxiety about that is through the roof. I never get enough oxygen or blood around my entire body. I’m working on getting the surgery to fix it but it takes a complex team of physicians to agree to do it, then I’ll have to come up with a $3,200 copay for the surgery and my insurance will have to approve it. My osteoporosis and osteoarthritis-ridden bones are rotting into dust inside my corpse while I’m still alive from my teeth down my spine out to my hands back down to my hips to my knees to my feet. Then there are the mental health struggles, all of which I’d love to get rid of for once and for all.
I’m so sick of trying to *get* better; I’m so sick of fighting for it, taking meds, and seeing doctors. I just want to ***BE*** better already! I’ve had more health problems than both of my 75-year-old parents and all four of my dead grandparents combined. I’m tired of missing so much work for medical appointments and being judged for that. I’m tired of my friends my age not understanding. They just think I’m a hypochondriac because they themselves have yet to suffer anything medical wrong. I feel like I have to show them my MRIs and lab work to get them to believe me. I’m not a hypochondriac, but I don’t have much of a choice to think about my health all the time when I’m constantly in crippling pain. I’m sitting here bawling thinking about everything we have to suffer through.
I keep trying to step back to see myself as a survivor rather than a victim, but then something new goes wrong that slams me right back down.
Here’s wishing for stability. I gave up on wishing for happiness, improvement, or hope a long time ago, so now I just wish for stability. But I simultaneously know the one sure thing in life is that things will change for the worse. I just try to enjoy the few quiet, pain-free moments when they’re there. I really miss the days when I was an optimist. Now I’m a realist.
