My body continues to fight me...

Or the other way around. This past year has been a year of injury and the return of some chronic pain issues. It has put me back to a very frustrated place of ten years ago. Frustrating because I thought I had learned so much, made strides to deal with pain and injuries, and yet, here we are again. But I must remind myself of one very important detail. My body reacts in a very physical way to stress and emotion. An injury last fall in my foot sidelined me from running. Shortly thereafter, I began to have the pain problems in my shoulder and neck again. Without an outlet for stress and emotion (the running), the chronic pain issues resurfaced. So, I got back in the pool and rediscovered something I had once loved very much. It changed my shape and left me quite svelte for my wedding day (although the tan lines were hilarious.) I was feeling very good. I had my routine of Jillian strength training, swimming and some yoga. I dropped about 8 pounds that I had been carrying for way too long. I also started focusing on my diet and began to rethink some choices. Another wonderful little reaction to stress is stomach aches. I have since realized that I seem to have an inflammatory response to everything (no pun intended) -allergies, stomach aches, chronic pain in my neck, back and shoulders. It has become very clear that some major life changes are in order. I am pretty sick of being sick or in pain.

I am now sidelined with some crazy pain in my leg - this is new - from biking, which I was also excited to rediscover, until the pain, of course. To boot, I have come down with one of my infamous sinus infections. (Bless you sudafed for all you do to relieve my sinus pressure.) So, again, I have to become one of those people for whom a very restrictive diet, careful exercise and stress/emotion management must be a daily thing because, like I said, I am sick of being sick and in pain. I like being active. I like being calm (I use this in place of happy.) I like being pain and allergy free. (And so does my husband.) He has a very hard time when I am sick or in pain. He is patient, caring, attentive and so very loving. But I know he hates that I am suffering and he wishes he could make it stop. Yeah, so do I. So I rest. I have given up on the idea that I will ride the Tahoe ride next weekend. I will take care of myself. The pain will go away. The stomach aches will stop as I restrict things like dairy, gluten/wheat and red wine. The allergies will get better too. The experiment continues.