My Journey To Health - Update

So many of you have been with me on this journey, sending love from near and far, so I wanted to continue sharing my story with you- the good and the bad.

Since my last update, I had a tough recovery from the vein embolization procedure but everything healed well and post-procedure scans “looked great”. Theoretically, this procedure decreased pressure in my pelvis now that the blood is flowing more efficiently, but unfortunately my left side lower abdominal pain persisted. It took myself, my mom, my doctors and a case manager almost 5 months to get a follow-up appointment approved for Shand’s Hospital to meet with their GYN specialists. We finally got the a-ok early February and mom and I set off on our third road trip up to Gainesville. The doctor there stood firm that any type of surgical intervention to diagnose or treat my symptoms would bare far more risk than benefit due to all of my previous surgeries and adhesions. And he is probably right. But it was hard to hear. Again. Felt like a dead end to this really long hard journey of trying to find answers, relief or even just a diagnosis. For two years, I’ve pushed through “one day at a time” with this hope that relief is possible. And maybe it still is... But I can’t keep my life on hold waiting. I’ve made the very difficult decision to take full medical leave from my job in order to give 100% of my energy to healing and adjusting to life with my new buddy- pain 👹. I’m establishing care with a pain managment team here in town, finding a GYN that can better manage my hormone therapy, and (honestly) digging in deep with a new therapist. I’ve been working a lot on the idea of “Radical Acceptance” and have been inspired by Lady Gaga’s interview with Oprah for her 2020 Vision’s tour about living with chronic pain. Honestly, if you haven’t watched it- please do! It’s a good one. Anyways...So that’s where I’m at. A heck of a lot of unknowns. But also a good bunch of new possibilities. Life innately contains struggle- in one form or another. This isn’t the first time life has presented me with giant hurdles and it won’t be the last- it’s up to me how I handle it. For some reason there are days that I believe this pain can take me down, but I have to remind myself that I’ve gotten through way worse. This can’t and won’t take me down. I just have to Adjust. Adapt. Accept. Keep. Moving. Forward. Love you guys

xo B

#chronicillnesswarrior #spoonie #unknowndiagnosis #yogaforpain #myjourney