healing is not linear... it is okay to have ups and downs..
TW: mental health, eating disorder
I expected my TOS surgery to be this magic "cure-all" prior to school starting, and when the pain not only pursued but worsened, I wanted to give up. Pair this with the mayhem and anxiety of COVID lockdowns, I felt trapped inside a body I was desperate to get out of or at least change. Prior to that year, I had never experienced suicidal ideation or thoughts of self-harm. It was my own "shameful secret", or at least that's how I saw it. Saying those words aloud meant facing those fears head-on, and after fighting against my own body for pain relief for so long, blocking out the mental toll also became routine. I got too used to putting on a brave face and choosing to focus on something else, this was easier than facing my fears and saying the words, "I'm really struggling" aloud. The only person I ever confessed my darkest thoughts to was my therapist, and yes, eventually my partner. My therapist told me to focus on healthy things that I can nourish my new body with, as a way to rethink the pros and cons of my surgery recovery. This helped me realize the handful of pros that were HUGE, in order to lessen the significance of the cons. I was not as sensitive to the cold in my elbow and hand! But, the biggest takeaway was being able to use my arm more than I ever was in those first two years of my initial injury. I decided that since using a stationary bike felt good to move inflammation from my TOS surgery upgrading to an actual bike would give me an excuse to "escape" lockdown. This happened to be the only kind of physical therapy I could tolerate. Doing the usual progression of resistance training with bands and stretching actually ended up causing more pain in my neck, arm/shoulder, and sternum. I saw this as one of the main cons of my surgery, since becoming more active with my upper body was personally, an essential thing for me to "get back". However, my therapist did strongly suggest strengthening my core to assist in a better ergonomic posture to lessen the strain on my back. So, I began to do small ab circuits, realistically it was glorified yoga. But, alas, we can't get everything we wish for.
My main distractions were weekly therapy, excessive biking/calorie counting (to a degree that was not oh-so-healthy, mainly to lose pre-surgery weight but I didn't realize it then), and spending lots of quality time with my partner, my family, and lots of pups. My partner became my number one person to lean on, which was great throughout college since we were together most of the time, and if not, I would be with my roommate. I decided to keep up with this routine going into school until I found healthier ways of surviving through the pain.
That first semester of college went better than expected, despite all the anxiety I had going in. Yes, it was a lot of work, but due to COVID, everyone had more time to find something that made them happy. I rediscovered what having a close group of friends was like. I felt grateful, to have a system/community of support to cheer me up and be understanding. Since I went to an all-girls high school, I lacked a close-knit group of guy friends; at heart, this was severely needed. I am what people call a guy's gal. I love being social, playing video games/sports for hours, listening to raunchy rap, and smoking nonstop. We set up Mario Kart tournaments, hikes, and even smoke-out challenges. It felt like I was a little kid again getting to just have fun and not care about other responsibilities. This was a sign, I needed to find personal moments of joy.
My main source of joy came from being able to ramp up physical therapy, to the point of being able to finally call it a workout! However, I was beginning to feel more like myself despite increasing subluxations along my back, sternum, neck, shoulder, and abdomen. Some were louder and more painful than others, and there was no way to know when it would make me throw up or go into a panic attack. And sleep, oh boy, well since they had to snip the muscles used to pull a breath from your chest in order to get to my deformed first rib and remove it, the only way to breathe deeply was by focusing on my diaphragm. Just like many people, your body "forgets" its own breathing rhythm while you sleep. This meant panic attacks pretty much twice a night... I felt out of control and extremely desperate for relief. Yes, smoking did help with pain relief, but by now my tolerance was quite high I needed some other medication to help ease my painsomnia and panxiety. With little sleep and always feeling jittery and on edge, panic attacks began to disrupt my school and social plans throughout the day. So, I decided to be more open with my psychiatrist and began Cymbalta. Those first couple weeks of adjusting to the dosage increase and dealing with side effects were not easy, but with any medication, especially, anxiety and anti-depressants, consistency is key.
The ongoing nausea was caused by the nerve pain felt in my spine and squeezing me around my rib cage. was getting more and more severe, food became a trigger for anxiety. My appetite was beginning to diminish quickly and even if I managed to get something in my tummy, the digestion process would make my ribs spasm to the point of violent subluxation that would ultimately send a burning sensation across my abdomen. Pair this with needing to eat in order to take medication, I felt guilty and stressed. However, there was a voice deep inside that didn't mind not eating three meals a day in order to "look good feel good". Staying sedentary often made my pain spike, so staying active and distracted felt productive. I got cleared from my PT to work part-time at Michales as a cashier. He said it would be a good way to have a controlled workout since using bands and resistance training would cause major spikes in inflammation. As I started working I noticed that my back would spasm more often, to the point of not being able to walk or sit to due feeling breathless. My PT suggested I go to a chiropractor weekly to realign my spine, hoping that this would relax any tight muscles spasming and causing subluxations and impinging my back. Everyone in the clinic knew me by the nickname "pop rocks". I even had to be booked with patients who would be unbothered by the sound of joints popping in and out. My chiropractor even said that I was the loudest adjustment he had seen in all his years of working in the field. This was when I was first told about something called slipping rib syndrome and hypermobile disorders. Every week intensive massages were done to my scaps and back. My poor massage therapist tried everything to loosen my rock-hard muscles, the only thing that would help was smoking and doing nothing, which was not going to work out for me. I was growing more frustrated and hopeless and my pain remained persistent. My foam roller, yoga ball, bedroom floor, and I became very intimate, haha. It was the first thing I would run to do as soon as I got home from work. Some nights were worse than others and on those nights I got very little sleep and panic attacks due to the burning pain. Yes, working was very difficult but I needed to feel productive in order to not slip into a poor mental state. Sometimes you just have to keep living and keep pushing through the pain or it will eat you alive.
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