Since my breakdowns I’ve struggled to recover. Before these incidences I was experiencing problems in learning, retaining information, speaking, just to mention a few. I’ve had brain injuries. One of which occurred during the same injuries that caused my CRPS.

The first, fairly mild at birth, yet beginning while I was still in mama’s belly. A cerebral palsy. Forcep delivery.

I always knew I had juvenile arthritis and issues in my neck. I hardly have neck length anymore.

I was barely 33 when CRPS came along. I’ll be 52 in 3 months. My back was also injured in the same incident.

Depression began within the first years of that. Anxiety followed. The continuous hardship of weight bearing.

I can’t really describe anymore what my mind was going through while giving it all I had to walk at all.

In a way, I suppose I was heading for multiple breakdown all along.

I’m a former California Ambassador, Executive Board Member, and Advocacy Director for the International Pain Foundation.

A legislative advocate that testified on behalf of pain patients, authored articles, in the public written record on the then proposed CDC recommendations and on the call that determined what most refer to as the 2016 CDC Opioid Guidelines. I was a member of the Opioid Prescribing Taskforce- Medical Board of California in 2013.

So much more.

2016 the year that I crashed so hard from unrelenting pain.

The year that I also received both the Medtronic Bakken Award and the iPain Patient Advocate Hero of Hope Award.

Great accomplishments. I was also on the very edge and didn’t know to what extent.

I tried so hard to hold on.

I’m perhaps not fully recovered yet from the mental blast that came with it. I am closer than I had been.

I’m still trying to adapt to living without the benefit of my SCS. It has been left inside me no longer working.

My mind swirled with all these things over and over. I have severe medical anxiety now. Just thinking about trying to get help, the times I was in bad shape and needed medical care I couldn’t go.

When my ankle broke 8 months ago my husband said I had to go to the ER. We knew it was broke. I knew I needed to and we went. I had to hide my fears. I was trembling inside.

It was recommended I make a follow up doctor appointment within 2 weeks and request a bone scan. I never did. I managed myself the best I could. I recieved 2 days worth of low dose hydrocodone.

Back to my point of recovery. I can’t stay focused, my writing skills are shot. Everything is everywhere and doesn’t always make sense. It’s not only writing, posting, or texting, it’s verbally too. Especially when my mouth is swollen. The glands at the roof of my mouth pop out. Painful. I try to fake it as necessary. Embarrassing and I don’t know the cause. I know I have bone disease there but the glands or ulcers, whatever it might be, I don’t know.

Nerve damage head to toes though.

I want to advocate again, I want to help others as able, but I can’t commit like I once could. It’s so overwhelming just to get through the day and nights physically. I’d have to have small tasks. Maybe as I continue forward I’ll be able to one day.

I am recovering from what broke me. I’m healing. Ever changing.

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We can recover! It doesn’t happen overnight. All the times we hear, “just get over it” when it’s difficult to get over what still exists and is ongoing. It would be different if what we were going through was over and done with. Closure can begin, letting go can happen. Even then there’s a process of healing.

The only thing that keeps me sane is not giving it all too much thought. Otherwise, a replay begins. I can’t go there.

My new grandbabies are my diversion.

When it gets too heavy, I get off the social media. When I see people hurting, I hurt for them, and then with them. It shakes my mental and physical being.

I’m learning proper Spanish rather than the bits and slang I already knew.. I’m moving forward in my lessons well. It can be an extra challenge at times. I have to go back to previous lessons in order to recall. On the bright side, I’m sure some others need to as well.

My new grandson will be bilingual. My son speaks Spanish well and his wife is bilingual so baby Ezekiel will be also.

Please bear with me while I try to make sense in writing, expression, and living outloud.

I do look forward to sharing natural remedies, supplements, herbs, and more that I’ve had to learn to maintain myself the last 4 years.

Until next time…