I hate everything

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Well, not really. Not everything. I love my dogs. I love my kids. I love being outside, especially in the woods or by free-moving water. I love learning something new that is also interesting. I love working with my hands - gardening, building, refinishing, crocheting, painting. I love hiking, I love using my body to do incredible things. I love going to the gym. I love mowing my yard. I love spending time with friends. I love movies. Music. Books. Poetry. Writing.

What I really hate is my illness. I hate the way my body is attacking itself. I hate getting one joint through a crisis only to have another joint fail. Hands, knees, shoulders, back, hips...one after another, like a cascading systems failure, and I can't stay ahead of it. I hate being in pain all the time. I hate having to ask my daughters for help with simple things like walking my dog or cooking a meal. I hate taking multitudes of medication and not feeling any better. I hate washing my hair because that means losing another handful. I hate having only about four productive and relatively good hours in any given day. I hate going grocery shopping and and having to rest for an hour afterward. I hate how people are afraid to ask me how I am, and I hate how ready people are to hear "I'm fine" when it is obvious that I'm not.

I hate loving the outdoors and not being able to go outside.

I hate loving my dogs and not being able to play with them or walk them.

I hate being so exhausted that learning is painful.

I hate not being able to pull weeds, use a shovel or a hoe, or make repairs to my house.

I hate needing help.

I hate being alone in my illness.

I hate getting up from my desk and having to walk bent over with my fists in the small of my back until the muscles loosen up enough for me to stand straight.

I hate not being able to walk normally up the hall to the front of the building where I work. I've walked up that hallway four times today - waddled, really. Hobbled. And I hated every step.

I hate using a cane.

I hate not being able to roll over in bed without levering myself upright first.

I hate the way my illness changes relationships that I thought would never change.

I wish I didn't care about the things I've lost. I wish I had never loved any of these things, or the people who've left my life. If I had never cared about any of them, I wouldn't feel the void where they used to exist. I wish my heart was made of stone and my body of steel.

I don't always feel this way, but today is the tenth day of relative agony with my back. I am in pain. I am tired. I am stressed. I've had a sore throat and a painful ear for a month and I can't shake them. After ten days, I still have a hard time walking and if I have to stand for more than five minutes at a time, the pain becomes unbearable. I woke up with a sore, swollen right wrist this morning, and it has gotten worse as the day progressed. I spent almost forty dollars on supplements today and I have no idea whether they will help my condition at all, but - any port in a storm. I work really hard to replace negative thoughts with positive ones, but today, I've failed.

I guess that's ok. I'll try again tomorrow.





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