Was Confucius Confused?

Confucius once said, “It doesn’t matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” Just like a marathon or our race through life, moving forward is always a good thing and sometimes finding the will to not give up and stop is tough.  At this time in my journey, I felt my healing was moving rather slowly, and I wasn’t ready to give up or stop.  I wanted the pain to go away and I wanted to get back to school. However, if I’m being honest, I think Confucius may have been a bit “confused.” Because in October of 2016, I decided to move forward slowly and to not stop. I begged the doctor to let me go back to work even though I wasn’t 100% better. In hindsight, that was a bad idea. I really should have stopped!

I had spent the last several weeks doing more and more research on my condition and trying to figure out if something else could be wrong. My foot/ankle still hurt, burned and was hard to walk on. It was still swollen, red and my heel felt frost bite to the bone. I still had burning in my thigh and sometimes up my entire left side. These were all symptoms of CRPS; however, I didn’t understand why I was having such a problem in my foot when supposedly all I had done was broken my leg. Symptoms of CRPS usually begin where you were actually hurt. Wouldn’t that mean I would have more severe pain in my leg than I did? This thought just wouldn’t leave my mind; it just didn’t make sense to me. Man, I sure wish I had the knowledge of a doctor.

I could tell the PRP was working a little bit because I was feeling some relief. That coupled with pain meds and other assorted medications seemed to be getting me through each day. I had good days and bad days. My new normal pain level was a 3 and most days I would shoot up to at least an 8. (Funny story, now when someone asks me how I’m doing, I always give them a number. Makes me feel like an elementary student who is assigned a number at the beginning of the year. J) When at levels of 3 -5, I could manage with just ibuprofen/Tylenol, even though they made me sick to my stomach. The two weeks prior to my doctor’s appointment, I did what I could to stay relaxed, continue my physical therapy on my own, and worked on positive thinking. I just knew this was going to be the end of the journey.  After all, I needed to be back at school and not sitting at home in pain.  I needed to keep moving forward and not stop, like Confucius said.

Appointment day was finally here. The doctor was considering another PRP injection, but he wasn’t married to the idea. I expressed my concern about being away from school and the stress that it caused me and he agreed to let me try going back. I promised him I would be honest with myself and call if my pain levels increased. I spent a week at school with amazing kiddos, but was in pain the entire time. The loud noises in the hallways, cafeteria were overbearing. My stress levels went up. My mind was focused on my pain; therefore, it was difficult to remember little things such as taking attendance. The kids in my classroom were amazing, but I left every night feeling defeated, tired and in excruciating pain. I survived all day with large amounts of ibuprofen and Tylenol. When I returned home, I would take a pain pill, go to bed, and get up the next morning to do it again. I had to try. I had to. WHY isn’t this pain going away? Why can’t I just ignore it? After a long week of this, I knew I had to call the doctor, at least that’s what I promised to do.

Another difficult moment during this journey was calling the doctor about my increased pain. I was, undeniably, in too much pain, and it was getting worse. I’d failed. I’d stopped. I was letting so many people down, including myself. As suspected, my doctor pulled me back off work and wanted to see me every 2-3 weeks to evaluate my progress. Each time he would keep me off work. Truthfully, there was no way I could work anyway, and I knew it.  I just didn’t want to believe it, admit it. My journey started feeling like a game of Monopoly. Never moving out of jail and never ending.  Little did I know I was making a huge mistake when begging to go back to work. Turns out, I was not at the end of my healing marathon. God had a different plan. I guess I should have remembered another quote from Confucius, “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.”  In my defense, I don’t think I was ignorant, I just don’t think I’m good at admitting when I need to stop!  (Some might say that is ignorant!) Anyone else have that problem?