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Learning Lessons the Hard Way
Living with chronic pain is no joke.
I’ve been living with chronic back pain for over two decades. My scoliosis (aka curvy spine), which I discovered when I was 12, decided to start rebelling against me around the time I hit my 20s. That’s a long time to have not learned the most important lesson — how not to aggravate my back further than necessary.
What can I say? I am incredibly stubborn.
Even though I know better, I keep pushing myself further than I should because I don’t want to be broken. I don’t want to admit that there are simply some things I physically cannot do. Even though I have written those words many times before and have vowed to learn my lesson to listen to my body when it tells me to stop doing things I know I will pay for later …. well, I never really was a great listener.
It’s extra tough considering that I wasn’t always this limited in my daily activities, life choices, etc. It isn’t easy to go from being young, mostly healthy and pain-free, to feeling like a 90-year-old woman who can’t even walk properly some days. It’s bittersweet to remember the person I used to be sometimes.
Today I learned the same old lesson the hard way yet again (so am I actually learning anything at all?) I aggravated my back at work yesterday to the point where I woke…
