Lilly Sway

I have deteriorated now to sitting more often than I would like to here of late. There is a need to, whether I want to or not. I have both my bones rubbing at the knee and the pain is quite unbearable there is no cure for rheumatoid arthritis only the reality that all the pain killers in the world are a passive non addressing of the core problem that plagues my days and nights constantly. I have been out of pocket since a few weeks ago due to this wretch id agonizing, overwhelming pain.

I as usual have just kept up that old faithful mind set that nothing lasts for ever and I sometimes feel that I am dead wrong this time, I only wish I was and maybe I can believe that they are wrong. I sat for a collective 18 idle hours waiting for a diagnosis at the emergency room, only to be given a Tylenol 3 prescription, that is standard. In after the x-rays confirmed my worst fears. I am going to be crippled here soon yes that was the diagnosis, I know that oh well people live with that everyday, but with no health care this is a night mare. I have bone on bone damage now, and it is escalating to now my other leg I am worried and rightly so.

I have been crying at night, every night for as long as I can remember anymore I am a nervous wreck I can not eat, or function, I break to the nearest chair in sight just to get off of my legs constantly. I went to the grocers with my family and could barely stand the pain long enough to remember what I needed. I was trying to get things that no one else ever thinks about when they go, and frankly I wanted to get out of the house. What a bad idea I cried my self to sleep and could not function on my legs at all the next day.

My thirteen year old has a computer chair he brought it to me to get to the kitchen so that I could make him breakfast, so now I am on wheels so to speak that is on wheels,  but not a wheel chair, with no arms on this chair I move, since it is for a young person it is narrow and has the ability to raise up to reach the cabinet with little effort and I think I will try to modify it. I have been pouring my thoughts towards the chair since I need it more often than not. I have for two days now jumped in that chair and used my arms to spring board myself from room to room. I have given myself a diet of liquids, for the proof is in the pudding. If I loose a bit more weight I can maybe stand longer. I cannot and will not walk well again they say, but I think that I will,  it came like day to night, one moment I could and just ignored the very uncomfortable  pain and then I was in this chair. I pray for some kind of God send everyday. More importantly I look for a remedy everyday.

I am an adult I know where there is no cartilage there is no cartilage, but oh well, I can dream can’t I ?  I have even played the mega millions. I need a ray of hope that seems attainable. I believe that there must be a way to afford a buffer or a fake cartilage. I am just kidding about the lotto I did buy a ticket and well with the law of averages I may  or may not have Murphy on my side, but it does no harm to try. I have to much to do and now that my husband is feeling bad I am feeling useless in this battle.

I saw an infomercial this morning that was geared toward the rebuilding of cartilage in the joints, I concede to you that it may not work in all practicality, but trying something is always better than just giving in to the words I heard last week and I quote (” you can get a government plan to help with you debilitating disease as you will eventually loose not only your ability to move your legs at the knee, but as the x-rays have shown us your whole body has this disease”). I asked if there were no prospects for a remediation to the problem, the intern went on to say that they can manage the pain very well for me. I don’t want a pain killer I want an address to the core of the problem not pain medication I said, he shrugged his shoulders and said ” wouldn’t we all”, he then wrote out the prescription and sent me home. I am angry at the little things that I cannot do and even more so at the large tasks that seem now insurmountable. The future that someone else has painted for me is unacceptable and an inconceivable one in my view.

I do not cave easily no, not at all after biting my lip and thinking on this I decide not to fill out the prescription  and take the road less traveled. I can continue research on my own and find maybe a natural way to address what my disease is doing to me. I do not like feeling helpless and I have made up my mind that I am not helpless, there are many, many, many things that I can do to over come the tasks that are overwhelming to me, and then there is the tenacity that has helped me come this far in my life. I refuse to think that there are no resolves to this particular problem. I dare to give up for it means that I will be where “they”  have put me, in the group that accepts all that they are told by a doctor and just accepts their fate.

I already have read more on the subject than I would have liked to, but I can always recall those firm and unrelenting words my mother shared with me through trying times. “Educate yourself my darling Lilly, for knowledge is power, knowledge can release a person from the grips of evil, and deliver a person to the yields of the earth if you are brave enough and can withstand the tides. If you can see past the bad and the things that block you from that view. Learn to look past the now and never just settle, learn what you are capable of achieving”. I did walk when all said I would not ever, and I played all sports when they said I would not ever play one, I emerged from the grips of a hellish childhood with love and yearning for a better life ahead, I did those things with out a doubt in my head  that I could not.

I often saw my mother broken, and deteriorated, beaten down physically, and mentally, and then when we all left and packed up and left him my father, he would find us and he would bring us back, to even a more horrific encounter than the one that made us run away in the first place. I do remember that my mother would make us go to school the very next day and would pack us a hearty lunch with notes  that would say “I love you, God loves, you and you love all of your siblings, this is enough to get any one through anything. My mother with her broken arm, or black eyes, or her hair ripped out in clumps on the ground would not ever send us to school with out a lunch.

I thought that she was not brave , but as I grew I saw her try  and try and try to leave until we all grew up and left. The days of long ago still fresh as if yesterday. I left last and slow I worked two jobs and went to school to save enough to finally leave, My father would take half of all that I earned and made all of my chores tougher, but I kept my composer and went along with all that I had to, for the dream of all that I knew would and could be different. I found that he grew ill and week and that I did not have to run I knew that my mother was to broken and old to leave.

I became a strong willed person with nothing but love for the new life that was on the horizon for me. I knew that there is as much good as there is evil out there and that I had the power to choose. I have been through and survived a broken jaw when my father punched me across the room for not being fast enough to get him a glass of water, I lost 3 molars and two teeth. I learned to chew at the front of my mouth, I have had six broken ribs, a cracked pelvis, a broken finger and a hairline fracture from one end of my skull through the circumference, the migraines were horrid. I did find natural healing and a mind set that would and has gotten me through a lot. I write these horrible things along with the good things for those who might care to know that all things evil do come to an end.

I have a decease so what, I feel that I can try to overcome the prognoses, yes this person who gave me a bad report on my health did not know the things that I have experienced in my life and the things  that have happened to this body, he just knows what he has studied and can only give me a prognosis from that prospective, If I am to be crippled by this disease it will not be without a fight, it will not be with out all of the knowledge of how to deal with what is to come, and it will not certainly be with out my giving in to concede that I have been beaten, and well that will be a clod day in ha-tees.

So for now I am in the chair more often than I care to be but knowledge is power and I am feeling a bit smart today.

Food For the Mind

Lilly’s Way  www.lillysway.com