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.

What are we doing?

Watching "Sex in the City 2" made me realize how much I dislike the way the world is becoming. Why is that the wealthy get everything, the poor get nothing, and wealthy just continue to take from the poor. I loved living in Ghana, it was the way life should be. People help other people just because they are kind; not because they hope to get rewarded. North America is the most wasteful and sinful place on earth. We are obsessed with our selves, we don't care if our pollution causes villages in Africa to be destroyed, as long as we can live comfortable and consuming lives. I can't say that I liked any part of "Sex in the City 2," it just reinforced the feelings I have about the way I live, the way everybody around me lives and how we all strive to be able afford clothes, shoes, houses, and be able travel around the world first class. Shouldn't we be striving to send every child to school? Shouldn't we be building clean water stations in every village and town around the world? What about AIDS, or malaria, or typhoid? Why don't we all put our money together and make these things happen? The answer is simple, we want Ipods, new shoes, new cars and big houses. We don't want to worry about the problems of the world, we would much rather live in an ignorant bliss, and consume products faster than we can glean the uses of them.
I don't want to live like this, but how do you build a mud hut in the middle of suburbia, and cook over an open fire without being totally cut-off off from society. I don't understand the world. I don't understand why I was born into a privileged family, while somebody else is born into dirt, starvation, and poverty with no expectations or future. It is a cycle, I just happen to be in a different cycle, but my cycle is destroying the world.
I feel like a hypocrite by writin this while sitting on a plane that is taking me to university, and spewing pollution into the atmosphere which will ultimately wipe out an other coastal village in Africa. I don't have a criminal record, I have never gotten in trouble with the law and I have never done anything that would leave my hands blood stained...but my actions are only being judged by the law. The law that we are all supposed to follow every day is incredibly flawed. My hands are blood stained, so are yours, your brothers, your mothers and your friends. My high school band teacher once told us, "Every action has a reaction, be it positive or negative. Which do you choose?" Well, I am choose actions that have negative impacts on people all the time. So do you, you just don't know that the plane ride you took to Mexico added just enough carbon to the atmosphere that the sea levels rose, and killed 13 people in Africa when the sea came rushing in.
What do you choose?

Don't be haten'

I have always wondered what hate really is. Is the best definition the hate the Nazi had for the Jewish people? What about the feelings between the French and the English, or  Northern USA and Southern USA during the American civil war? What about your feelings towards that guy who just smudged your brand new bike with his greasy fingers? What is hate? Why do people hate?

It seems to me, that in every instance I just listed, a group of people hates another group because they are jealous. (The bike part is an exception to that hypothesis, I just am really protective over my bikes.) Nazis were jealous of the Jewish people because the Jewish people in general worked harder, believed in education and therefore, made more money. Money seems to bring out the worst in people. So is it money that we really hate or should hate? What would happen if we destroyed every piece of money in the world, would people stop hating each other?

I think hate is just another way of projecting ones emotions about feeling inadequate, onto somebody who appears better than you are.

 

I'm Walking on Sunshine...yeahaa

As you could probably assume form the title, I am mobile! I am not referring to a cell phone, laptop, or car, but my own two feet. (Well, really  it was only one foot that made it so I couldn't walk. Have you ever tried to walk with one foot? If you haven't, you should try it, and it would also be a good idea to do so while wrapped in bubble rap with a safety approved helmet on.)

My room had become horribly disorder while I was on crutches because it is just so very difficult to do everything. Today I cleaned! Today I walked up and down stairs like an almost normal person. I went to physio, it hurt like a banshee, I almost cried, and then walked down a set of stairs. These seemingly insignificant accomplishments are seemingly massively significant to me.

Have you ever experienced walking? I don't just mean one foot in front of the other to get to the fridge, I mean really walking. Feeling the carpet for the first time in four weeks, taking a step, and then another and then another and feel like you are floating on a cloud? Okay, that kind of sounds like I am stoned, which is partly true, (its all prescription I swear), maybe someday you will feel the pure ecstasy of walking, and no I am not suggesting you go out and get high in order to experience this.

I'm walking on sunshine.    

A nice trip

Last Monday, I went on a really nice trip. Not to Mexico, or a fantastic bike trip, but the kind where the floor seems to come at your face far to rapidly.

I was sitting on the couch with my foot up, and then my mom called me for dinner. Apparently dinner seemed really exciting because in my rush to get up stairs, I tripped on the coffee table and landed on my post surgery foot.

I still can't put weight on it. I hope I didn't do something inside where the surgery was...