Am I Disabled?

Well, here I am.  Frustrated again.  Feeling the injustice of it all.  Really?  Lord, really I am trying...I am trying to forget and forgive...

The last couple of years have been really intense.  Schooling, getting certified, still getting certified, work, husband, kids - AGGGHHH!!!! Does it ever end? 

Apparently not, because even while trying to do my job, it's stress.  Looking for a better job, yep - stress.  The thing I am obsessing over  now is the question on my online application "Are You Disabled?"  Three choices...1.  Yes, I am.  2.  No, I am not disabled. 3.  I do not wish to answer your question.  And we all know where you will wind up if you choose Door Number 3...

Am I disabled?  Well, let's see.  For purpose of clarifying muddy waters, I chose Door Number 2.  I have never, as far as I know, received a clinical diagnosis of "Disabled."  Do I have a physical condition that affects me?  Yes.  Does that make me disabled?  At times.  I really was confused for a moment on how to answer the question.  Door Number 1 - You are probably out of the running automatically.  Nobody wants to hire a disabled person, right??? We all know the truth.  Quit lying. However, there are perfectly capable people who are and do have a diagnosis of disabled.  How would you want to be treated if it was you on the receiving end of this question? 

So back to my dilemma - I have a bad back.  There is no rhyme or reason to my 'bad back.'  It chooses at various and usually awkward moments to go out on me.  When it goes out, it goes out.  As in - Pain!  Extreme Excruciating Pain.  It locks all up and the minute it locks up, the hips lock up.  The legs go numb.  Then it starts pulling and before long, the rest of my upper back is twisted with shoulders uneven.  All I did was sit down on a couch and stand back up.  Honestly.  That's all I did. 

They say, and here we go again, who are 'they?'  The initial catalyst that started my back issue was a fall that happened.  I slipped, fell and hit the base of my spine on a railroad tie.  Whoooo Doggies!  Boy, did that ever hurt...but I say something else helped in this issue.  I had major open surgery, not laparoscopic, and this surgery, I believe, caused a weakening in the core abdominal muscles which are required for good support of the spine.  Why do I believe this?  Because every time my back goes out, it hurts right underneath the incision site of this particular surgery.  By the way, my experience with this surgery has made me fight ever going back to the operating room again.  I had my children by natural childbirth, midwife, etc., etc.  I, if at all possible, will never undergo the 'knife' again.
It's a story unto itself and not the topic of this post which is "Are You Disabled?" 

My first experience that I can recall and this is many years later, my mother says to me, "You know, maybe I should take you to Dr. _______, a chiropractor.  He has helped me and maybe it will help you."  So off we go.  I do not remember having an event or what prompted the visit other than I must have been having something going on...However, after the first visit, even while still in the car coming home from the office visit, my back went into a spasm.  I literally was screaming in pain.  My head was being drawn back and my bottom was being drawn back.  Imagine your spine being shaped like the alphabet letter "C".  That is what was going on with the muscles at that particular moment.  My mother immediately took me to the emergency room.  I could barely walk.  And this is where I got to suffer the embarrassment of the resident on call of when he was done examining me and stating you can put your clothes back on...All I had on was the hospital gown, my mother was not in the room with me because by this time I was 'of age'.  I could not bend over to pick up my underwear lying on the floor.  He comes back, in a huff, "You're not dressed yet?"  And acting as if I was making this all up.  It took three pain shots and a bottle of  muscle relaxers to get me walking again.  It took two weeks after that, for me to get back to normal.  Am I disabled?  He bent over, picked up my underwear and threw them on the examining table.  Why am I the one feeling like somehow this is all my fault?  His bad behavior.  I still had the dilemma of getting my underwear back on...   I was only 21.  I was embarrassed.  Did I want help dressing?  No.  And here he is like "Hurry Up!"  I finally had the foresight enough to very carefully drop my underwear on the floor again, making sure that I could get my one foot which seemed to be working at the time and put it through the leg hole.  Once I had that side on well enough, I took the big toe of that foot and pinched it together with my 2nd toe and managed to pick up the underwear and slide them on the other foot.  Now, I had just been giving three pain shots.  Anytime, I flexed my spine, there was intense pain, and all I am thinking is please don't let me lose my balance.  Please, don't let me lose my balance.  About the time I had my underwear up to my knees, my mother appears and helps me finish getting dressed.  She told my father that night, I did not think I was going to get her out of the car because I was already passing out from the medications they had given me.  Am I disabled? 

The next time this happened, my father happened to be at home and not working.  He and my Mom take me off to the doctor.  No trip to the ER this time.  Mainly because I am shouting "Do not take me to the ER!  I do not want to repeat the experience!"  Remember that open surgery...remember my first trip to the ER for my back???  This particular doctor, who was very nice and caring, very adeptly said "she needs this, and this, and this.  Do this and this."  So we were all in agreement.  Three pain shots, a script for pain medication and muscle relaxers.   No having to get completely undressed.  But to get off the table...I remember my Dad saying to me, seeing that I could not move and half of my body is like frozen.  I have always been overweight.  Extremely so.  So my father is saying to me, "You slide off the table and I will catch you."  I had thoughts running through my head.  "I know you're strong, Dad.  But you're not that strong."  I knew, we had one chance at this.  I was sitting up on the bed.  I slid off.  Somehow, miraculously, his arms were under my arm pits.  My feet hit the floor and he was holding me up.  Instant, jarring pain to nerves and muscles already twisted and contorted and in severe pain.  But, I was standing and with his support, I stayed up.  Another two weeks of bed rest, out comes the walker which had belonged to my now deceased grandmother.  "Great.  I am 22 years old."  The vision of a walker in my head and me having to get around this way.  Pain.  Bone aching pain.  "Am I disabled?" 

I then heard about some 'Faith Healers.'  I had been searching.  I had been attending a church that taught active faith in God's Word, The Holy Bible.  I had never experience anything like this.  These people were coming to town and so I made plans to go.  I had been on and off going to the chiropractor who could put me back in place, as he called it, but as soon as I stood up.  My spine was out of alignment again.  I was well aware of the debt burden I must be on my parents.  I was crying and asking the Lord to take me home because I could not stand the pain.  Deep, bone aching pain.  So when I heard of these people, I went.  I was desperate.  I needed healing.  I could not live life as it was.  I did not want a life like this.  I went, they prayed.  While I cannot say I got a complete healing, something happened.  Something changed.  I kept my appointment with the chiropractor because the faith healers said, "Prove God.  Keep the appointment.  Hear what your doctor says."  So I went.  The minute I got to the chiropractor and he saw me he said, "What's happened?  Something has happened!"  He was excited.  Smiling.  I asked, "How did you know?  I haven't said anything."  He replied, "I see it in your eyes.  The pain is no longer there.  But just hop up here on the table and let's make sure."  When I got on the table, he said, "Yep.  It's not out.  It's aligned."  It had never been that way before.  I did have to go back.  I did not know yet about the battle of faith we must all endure.
And I have digressed from my topic - "Are You Disabled?"

My condition has changed.  I have researched, learned, and have taught myself through life experience, through doctors, through friends, through lots and lots of reading, and through physical therapists how to manage 'my condition.'  Did I receive healing?  Something happened.  I no longer have the intense pain I used to have.  I no longer take two to three weeks, sometimes a month, to get back up and around.  I sometimes am back up the same day.  Some days I feel it coming on and if I am very careful, I can avoid it going completely out.  I've learned that my thyroid is involved in this process of muscle aches and pains, and nerve inflammation.  But at times, my back will still spasm and the question remains, "Am I disabled?" 

Technology 101

http://mistoverthemoors.blogspot.com/

See post about Technology for change in blog....

Technology

Technology...Seems like the usual spill is - It's supposed to make life easier.  I think I've been sold some dry land in a swamp.  Ya know what I mean? 

So, I have to rename my blog because after a b'zillion instances of feeling like I have lost control of my blog, or my email, I should say alternate emails, etc., because I would like to vent publically, yet privately, and then the strangest thing...as you get older, you can't remember a thing.  Trying to keep up with passwords, and all to protect your identity...and then all of a sudden you become the person that's trying to hack in to your account because you can't remember: 1) the email you created. 2) the password you changed. 3) the password you changed again because the other password did not work the first time you tried it after changing it, the password that is...Woo Boy!  I'm tired already and the morning is not even over with yet. 

Looking for Positives!

Yesterday, I could easily have had a bad day.  I had an epiphany.  What's an epiphany?  I'm not sure, but I think it's an 'AHA' moment...I had an 'Aha' moment at work.  The computer monitor for the front desk had malfunctioned.  They needed another monitor so guess who's monitor was loaned out...yep, mine.  It's okay.  It's not really my monitor; however, they did bring in a new monitor.  New size, new shape, and old equipment trying to work with new equipment which in this wonderful age of technology does not work sometimes. In my work, I must write and edit.  So this new monitor (really older monitor) did not like the new technology on my work computer.  Because of this, the resolution was off and the monitor could not handle this so I had a beautiful black box right smack dab in the middle of my screen for the first four hours of work.  The first report needed to be completed right away because it was needed by someone else right away and so on and so forth, so that I felt I could not take the time to figure out the solution to my problem.  My manager was also having 'one of those days'.  I decided it would be better if I just worked and then when on lunch, I would figure out what I needed to do to fix the problem.  You see, I may work on a computer but I don't know that much about them per se....meaning my wonderful hubby usually problem solves all my computer issues.  In the midst of the morning, the fray of the battle, the eye of the storm...etc., etc. blah, blah, blah... I started laughing.  I could not believe it.  I really started belly jiggling, chuckling all with the black box,  1 in. x 3 in. square, right smack dab in the middle of my screen - no moving it.  Thankfully, I could move my documents around so the black box did not circumvent my attempt to get work completed.  But it made me so very happy to laugh instead of getting angry and upset.  It had been so long since I had a positive response to a negative situation.  It was liberating.  I hope I do as well to respond in a like manner in the future because I was in a better mood all day long albeit it was a 'Full Moon Day.'