Cool, moving on.
So, when settling into MD, I joined the Crossfit gym that is 7 minutes (with red lights) from our house. It gives me something to do besides run and #humblebrag, I've lost 15-20 pounds depending on the time of month and that don't make me sad none.
That whole situation is fabulous, but do you know what isn't?
My bad hip being bad again.
Since June, I've been having hip issues again.
Let's rewind quicklike to 2017.. that one time, when I had hip surgery to repair a torn labia labrum and the Ortho either fearmongered or truthmongered me that if I were to tear the labrum again, I'd need a hip replacement. Ok, we're caught up.
So now, I'm doing 294820302 squats a week and my bad hip is angry.
Thankfully, I'm willing to be a pincushion and my chiropractor's office has a nurse practitioner who is willing to stab me frequently. So far I've enjoyed a non-cortisone shot, a cortisone shot (right before our flight to Germany*), and another non-cortisone shot. The goal is to eliminate possibilities of things that could be wrong, which is soo, soo tedious.
So anyways, yesterday afternoon was my 3rd injection and it wasn't what I would consider a pleasant experience, but neither is achy-all-the-time hip, so here we are. Achy to the point of waking me up in the middle of the night because bad hip is obviously not as afraid of me as it should be. So, now I'm hurting and tired... and I'm still expected to function and do all the things I always do and yall... it is exhausting.
It's exhausting trying to stay still or not stay still depending on what does/doesn't hurt my hip at the time. It's exhausting hurting and trying to react to literally anything else like a normal person that isn't consumed by pain that is making me irritable and tired because I'm probably actively hurting and I didn't sleep well last night because I was also hurting then too.
It's exhausting knowing that I have medication I could take to maybe dull the pain some, but it also dulls my brain and that makes it even more difficult to respond to literally anything else like a normal person.
It's exhausting trying to perform at my normal level of being pain free because that's what is expected of me.
It's exhausting asking for help because I, usually, still have to breakdown how to do all the things that I normally do without help (although this applies even when I'm pain free, lets be honest).
It's exhausting not using my exhaustion and pain as a reason when I fuck things up because sometimes it's just incredibly hard to concentrate when you're hurting and also multitasking 234183 things at the same time.
It's exhausting not telling people that I'm hurting so they know to be gentle with me.
It's exhausting trying to be funny about my pain levels when I'm really just trying to distract myself from it all.
It's exhausting that I guilt myself over not working out because I'm trying to rest my sore pieces.
It's exhausting that I guilt myself over how much it will hurt if I take too many rest days, when I inevitably return to the gym.
It's exhausting trying to limit myself at the gym so I don't further aggravate this mysterious injury.
It's exhausting trying to mitigate the pain when just sitting or laying or standing hurts.
Also, it's exhausting being exhausted.
And so this spiral continues...
So if you know someone who is hurting, cut them some slack. They may have a physical hurt or a mental hurt, but I am confident you know someone who is hurting in some way. Offer them help, even for the simple tasks you know they can do. When you see their own disappointment in themselves, reassure them that this isn't what defines them. Reassure them that not every day has to be a good day. Help them assess the new/temporary limitations that they can wrap their head around/manage and don't be hard on them when they bite off more than they should... because they will.
Because We the Pained just want to go back to those days without concerns or constant mitigation or having to just endure the pain because life doesn't stop and so we can't either. But we would like some compassion for our exhaustion and a little bit of slack when we can't always pull off "normal operations."
*We had to make a family emergency trip to Germany in July on short notice. It's a long flight so we went big on the injection situation. I also pulled out the big gun medications. #NoRisksTaken.