This week, Ellie soldiered through a typical springtime cold. Her nose ran, then clogged, and at night she snored like a bulldog as she tried to draw breath through the wet paper straws that were her swollen sinuses. Surprisingly, she maintained her usual, sunny disposition, rarely mentioning that she was sick, instead singing throughout the day as though nothing in the world was wrong.
Tuesday evening I was lying in bed beside her, listening to her snort and gurgle as she tried to go to sleep.
"How do you feel, Ellie?" I asked, feeling badly for all the effort it was taking her to breathe. Her answer was not what I expected.
"I still feel habby!" she said, snuggling into my shoulder. She still felt happy.
Last year, I would have given almost anything to have been able to answer the way Ellie had. Last year I felt like I was stuck at the bottom of a deep well looking up at the pinprick of bright sky where I once lived. I could see it up there, that bright and happy land, but I couldn't reach it. For the first time in my life, I felt utterly overwhelmed by everything; sad and exhausted and irritable. It was effort to get out of bed, effort to deal with housework and kids, effort to teach and listen and mediate disputes, effort to find the smiles and laughs that should surround my family. Effort. But there, in the bottom of my well, the resevoir was dry. I had no energy left at all.
In bed at night I would be exhausted but I couldn't sleep. I was wracked with anxiety - something I'd never really experienced before. I found myself worrying about everything: childhood disease, global climate change, finances, letting down the kids, letting down Paulo, never being able to find my way back to the happy place I'd always lived, natural disasters, fire, accidents, wars in foreign countries. Really. You name it, I'd worry about it. And all the while I was mentally kicking myself for worrying about things I had no control over - why couldn't I just shut it off? But the anxiety was like a runaway freight train. Every night I was tied to the engine and no amount of rational thought could untie the knots.
My back was in a constant state of spasm, too, and several times I found myself in the urgent care office, so stiff I could hardly move. I reasoned that the back pain was increasing my stress, and the stress tightening my back, and it seemed to be a vicious cycle I couldn't break. My usual back doctor was trying, but to no avail. I started spending time each night gently stretching, stretching, stretching and then meditating, trying to reduce the cramping and the pain in my body and my mind. Still, the pain persisted and I learned to live with it, modifying the way I did everything from cooking to managing the kids in order to work around the stiffness and immobility.
I didn't talk about it much. After all, what was there to say? I had a great life, a family I adored, enough to eat, a safe place to live, and I was miserable? So I had a bad back. Big deal. Half the people I know have had bad backs and they didn't spiral into utter misery. I had nothing to complain about and yet I felt terrible. So, instead of complaining I tried to find help. I went to the doctor and asked to have my hormone levels checked - maybe it was my thyroid, adrenal fatigue, menopause, or something physical that could be addressed.
When all my bloodwork came back normal, I sought out a therapist. Maybe I was depressed and need to talk to a professional. I certainly couldn't go on living like this - I was becoming someone I didn't even recognize. The therapist was sweet and tried diligently to find a way to help me feel better. Finally, after seeing me for several months, she shrugged her shoulders and admitted that we'd hit a dead end. I wasn't suffering from childhood trauma. I was aggressively looking for solutions instead of allowing myself to be defeated. I had good coping mechanisms and a good support structure. I had done everything she'd suggested and I still felt underwater. In essence, she was suggesting that I should rethink medication, but I wasn't interested. I went home and cried some more. I began to wonder if I was ever going to feel normal again.
Finally, in the summer, two things happened that would turn everything around. The first was that Paulo got his sleep apnea addressed and stopped snoring. For the first time in years, we would be able to sleep in the same room again. I moved off the extra bed in Ellie's room and back into the big bed. It was bliss, and just that simple change began to impact my night time anxiety. I began to relax in the evening and to worry a little less.
The second happened after three disastrous trips to the back doctor in a row. All three times I had come home feeling better, only to seize up completely within 48 hours. When I the doctor this, he decided to re-evaluate my back to see if there were any new areas that needed to be adressed. Sure enough, he found a second place that everyone had missed and began to work on it along with the usual place. Suddenly, the pain lifted. Completely lifted. By the time I was standing in the waiting room paying my copay I felt like I hadn't felt in a year - completely pain-free.
Being pain-free made me realize just how much pain I had actually been in all along. It's absence was shocking. Amazing. I couldn't believe it was true. For the next week, I woke each morning expecting the pain to be back, but it wasn't. I started sleeping better. As the days ticked by and the seizing didn't happen, I found myself laughing again. I stopped worrying and crying. I started dancing in the kitchen again, and singing in the car, and coming up with silly games to play with the kids. For the first time in a year I was finally out of that deep hole and the sun on my face each morning felt like a wonderful, thrilling miracle.
I called my therapist, thanked her, and told her I wouldn't be needing her help anymore. I called my back doctor and thanked him profusely - had had literally saved me.
It was eye-opening to discover that my whole life could be so crippled by this one problem. Chronic pain had imprisoned me for a year and I'd suddenly, unexpectedly, been granted parole.
It's been less than a year now since the pain lifted, and every day since has felt like a gift. I haven't forgotten that miserable, lost, overwhelmed woman, nor how easy it was for me to tumble down that hole. And I'd be lying if I said I don't fear a return of that kind of pain. I have a whole new appreciation for how debilitating it can be, and I think about the people I know with other chronic pain issues - fibromyalgia, sciatica, arthritis, and I marvel that they continue to smile and function when I could not. But with this perspective comes a gratitude for each day of freedom, no matter how hard life might be otherwise. Every time I can play on the floor with my kids or let them climb into my lap and hang a hug around my neck without pain, every time I can lift that crockpot into the overhead cupboard by myself, or take out the trash, or climb out of bed without pain, or shampoo my hair without pain, or pick up Ellie and squeeze her tight without crying, I am grateful. I know that the every day things in this life are full of gifts, and that I cannot afford to take them for granted.
I'm still tired, and busy, and sometimes sick or overwhelmed, but now it all rides on a sea of gratitude and relief. It might have taken a lot of pain to get here, but now I can move through life's bumps with a smile again. And if you were to ask, like Ellie, I could tell you without hesitation or reservation, I still feel happy.