You Gotta Fight the Fight

I'm sitting here thinking a million things while mindlessly watching some chick flick on TV that my mom just happens to have on in between the movies we've been watching all day and my ears picked up a line one of the characters said and it was, "You gotta fight the fight, kid."  I've heard some version of that line by several people before but why did I hear that line when I was not listening to the movie at all because there was so much noise in my head from all my thoughts but somehow, through all that noise, I heard that line.

I have had a hard week getting prepared for what I thought was going to be surgery this Monday, the 17th.  We would have been leaving tomorrow.  I go through a grueling mind preparation for my surgeries because I just never know if the surgery is going to work out as planned or something will go wrong because I have such a serious history with that so my mind goes wild with all kinds of different results and thinking about the pain that I'm going to be in.  And I just get nervous.  No matter how many surgeries I have had, I always get nervous and scared because of that "you never know" kind of history.  And with that nervousness comes agitation and frustration.  It's exhausting.  And now that my surgery has been pushed back a week for each one, I gotta continue these feelings that just crawl under my skin.  I know you all want to say, "You've got to think positive," or "Everything's gonna work out great," or "Think of the forward progress you're going to make," and "There's nothing to be nervous about so relax."  Well that's so easy for you maybe, but that's not how I react physiologically and psychologically.  I have had too bad of a history, even though things have gotten better, to just relax and not worry and think everything's gonna work out great.

The battles I fight daily are getting tiring.  They're changing my psych medications again so that's just adding to all the negative feelings I'm having and the inability to focus on things to take my mind off what I'm feeling and thinking.  But still, I will go to reach for a glass on the lowest shelf cause that's the easiest to reach, though I still have to step up on my tippy toes to get that glass, and I think that this arm I'm reaching with has been released 3 times and I've lost ground on it three times so third time wasn't a charm, as they say, so will the fourth be different?  Will a fourth release finally work?  It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about the loss that may happen as it has three times before.  I can't even remember what it feels like to be able to completely reach above my head so that my arms align with my body like a streamline in swimming.  It's those simple things that I will miss so much sometimes that I can't help but cry dark tears of the mobility limitations I now face and what they prevent me from doing.

Despite all the stretching that I did and still do with my neck, I can feel contractures settling in.  My body just won't heal properly.  But it's so good at contracting and banding and forming keloid scars.  The physical therapy I go through after a surgery like this is grueling and so painful.  Even the massage therapy can hurt cause they're massaging into where you just got released and it can still be tender.  And now you're out of the hospital so you have to settle for oral pain meds that can take longer to kick in instead of being able to be instantly relieved by a shot in your IV.

So everyday I fight these contractures and the breakdown and everyday I lose.  I lose.  And it's so frustrating.  I'm tired of fighting.  I really am.  But this person on the movie said so determinedly that you gotta fight the fight.  Of course this character had never had an injury such as mine or like those injuries of the people I met at the WBC but if I'm gonna live my life and live one worth living like I write about and dream about, that's what I have to do, keep fighting the fight.  But I'm getting exhausted and I'm losing the strength and life in my fight.  And there's no resting in this fight because it's when you're resting that the demons creep in and grab a hold of your mind and body.  So how do I restore the strength and life?  My heart is heavy and my mind is overwhelmed with noise and dark thoughts.  I've gotta keep fighting the fight or I will lose all that I am fighting for, even if I don't know what all it is that I am fighting for yet.  Will I be able to find some strength and some life to continue on with this fight?  "Fight the fight, kid," he said.  FIGHT THE FIGHT and you shall win the battle in time.