Georgia on my mind

For the past 5 days I have been riding up and down the Appalachian mountains of Georgia with a couple of cool guys from the U of G Cycling team. Its has been awesome, and really tough at some points.

The 16 hour car ride down here also had some interesting moments, but hey, what can you expect when driving through Kentucky? We had to stop a Waffle House because we saw a sign every 2 minutes, I just sucked it up and and ate a gluten filled pecan and chocolate chip waffle for $3.75. We also could not resist stopping at an outlet mall...why is everything so cheap in  America? We also saw caught up to an other car filled with Ontario university students, and of course we exchanged phone numbers through car windows while having a duel between which car could pull the best window stunt. They won...and there was some bare bottoms involved.

The hostel we are staying at is too nice to be called a hostel. It is honestly better than almost any hotel, and probably better than my dorm room. They also feed you the best breakfast on earth. Its awesome, and all for $17 a night!!

On top of Brasstown Bald, the highest point in Georgia. 

I have also come to the conclusion of why so many people in America are overweight....chocolate bars are 50 cents, and junk food is so cheep that it makes perfect, logical sense to buy it. We can't resist buying chocolate bars every time to we go to Walmart...which is every day.

flex it.

I can almost flex my right foot at much as my left foot now! Who would of thought physio could actually help! Small victories are worth every cent of effort that you put into it.

The Obvious

Why are some professors so horribly mean? Honestly, I don't understand. Sorry that I can't make my medical condition go away, sorry I can't control when my appointments and tests are. I thought people would be more fair in university, that they would take into account people's situations. Is getting electrocuted for an hour not reasons for "compassionate grounds?" If you have never been sick, then I can see why you wouldn't get it, but losing 5% of my mark because I physically can't be in two places at once just doesn't make sense. Trust me, I would much rather sit through the horribly ridiculous 1070 seminars than have needles stuck in my muscle with electric current flowing through them. Isn't that obvious?

 

RSD and School

I know life isn't fair, I know nobody's life is 'fair.' Everybody has their challenges, mine just happens to be pain. For the past four years my life has been centered around doctor's appointments, physio appointments and waiting in the emergency rooms of hospitals. It sucks. But based on the "Pain Centered Life" charts, I don't fit into it because my grades have never dropped, I still bike, I ski, I kayak, I do everything I did before, but not quite as well. Nobody else seems to be able to tell my life has changed by talking to me, or looking at me, but it has. I used to do thing because I enjoyed them, now I do them as a distraction.

Who goes to university for a distraction? Who takes six courses to distract themselves from pain? Who races bikes as distraction? I do. I don't know what else to do. My pain isn't even near manageable, it just seems like it is because I can do some many things. Lately my pain has been getting worse, lately I have been exercising twice as hard.

I am the only student on campus with this condition, the only one. I know this because if there was another one, they would be registered with the CSD, and the people at the CSD said this is the first time they have heard of this condition. That also sucks. My friends understand what I have, but they don't understand what it is like. Its hard to be a 'normal' university student when nothing is normal about you.

Just walking down Pain St.

It must be hard

I had a friend tell me tonight that she can't imagine what I am going through, and that I have been somewhat of an inspiration to her this past semester. But I don't know about that, sure, its hard, but everybody has some sort of struggle in their life. Even when you think some people have the perfect lives, the get straight A's without trying, they are athletic, and to top it off, they are always gorgeous people. But that is just what we see on the outside, even if we don't know about it, everybody struggles with something. I just happen to struggle with RSD. I just happen to live in pain, pain that never lets me forget what I can and cannot do.

Sometimes I have good days, when the pain isn't so bad, and then I have days when all I want to do is cut off my foot. After a procedure done at the end of October, I have severe spine pain. It hurts to do everything now, it hurts to bike, it hurts to walk, it hurts to sleep and it hurts to sit. I can barely tolerate wearing a back pack. It is probably hard for most people to imagine what it is like to have never ending pain that may only get worse, but it is also hard to imagine what people all over the world deal with everyday. Yes, I am in pain all te time, but so many people are in more pain than me. All I can do is pray for them.

New Blog?

I'm pretty sure nobody actually really reads this anyway, so I have decided that I am going to blog just for me. Its a good way to get thoughts down...its like talking to somebody who will always listen to what you need to say.

Pain. I for one think that the word 'pain' should be longer, and harder to pronounce; like those really stupidly complex scientific names that everybody struggles to say and pronounces differently, to the point where nobody actually knows how to say it properly. Big words usually aptly describe big things...and pain is big. Pain is one of those things that is pronounced, or perceived differently by everybody. Some people deal with it better than others, some people's 8 on the pain scale is another person's 3. I feel a lot of pain, to the point where I don't actually know how to describe it anymore. Nobody seems to understand that when I say it hurts, I really want to say that my entire body is paralyzed from pain, to the point where I can't even scream. But nobody gets that, because my pronunciation of pain is not one that they have ever heard, or felt before, so not many people can understand my version of the word pain.

RSD sucks. It hurts, and my pronunciation of pain goes more like this: Pain (P-aopajd-uyrkasjfh-hfh-eeeekhweas-ain).

Half Empty

As of tomorrow, I will enter into the last half of my first semester. Has everything been as great as I dreamed it would be? No. A lot of 'stuff' really sucks. Like my health for instance, I threatens my future everyday. Have I made a lot of really great friends, yeah I have. I am taking some really great class, yup, I sure am. Do I hate some classes? Yup. Did I make the right choice coming to Guelph? Now that, is not a one word answer. I have no idea if I made the right choice. It seems like life is telling me I didn't, but then everyday when I go to class or hang out with friends, it feels like I did.

On September 20th, my ankle opened up. The scar from my surgery just opened, and for a while you could see my bone. Its gotten better, but it was a little bit scary. The doctor kept telling me I should just go home, and everytime she said that it was like I was being punched in the stomache. Because of the hole in my foot, I have more nerve pain, and I don't have a doctor here to help with pain control. I thought I found one, and last tuesday he did an injection into my tailbone area that went horribly wrong. First of all, it worked on the wrong leg, and then caused severe pain to go from behind my left knee up my spine. Fun, eh? Fortunately, I seem to of come a cross a neurologist who would defintely make into my top three favorite doctors. He ordered an MRI of spine to see if the pain doctor caused any damage, turns out everything it okay and I just have to deal with the pain for now until goes away. See, things just keep happening to me.

I have been questioning my faith lately, who I am, who I want to be, and because of that I haven't been able to blog. I just don't know what to blog about. Right now I feel like life is half empty, instead of half full like it used to be. The pain is crushing me, slowly, but surely it is destroying every part of me bit by bit.

So was coming to Guelph the right choice? I don't know.