Journey to Brave: The Realities of Daily Pain

{Art journaling by Jennifer LeBlanc 2012. All Rights Reserved.}

Pain is an opportunity to practice courage.

People have told me how amazed they are that I continue smiling through the pain. That's not always the case, and this picture was taken to prove that. I post it with trepidation. It's not pretty. Neither is severe pain or living with it.

The picture on the left was taken on my way to church with my family. This is what people often see. I'm done up and out. I look 'normal.' I am likely in significant pain even when I look like the left picture. What people don't see is the effort it takes to get the pain under control and get myself looking like this and get out the door. The picture on the right is what people rarely see. This was taken the other night while I was in a severe episode of Costochondritis, a frequent symptom I have, when the inflammation flares in my sternum, rib cage and chest. This particular attack was my spine, ribs, chest, sternum, all the way around, front, back and sides. I literally felt "IN pain." I was inside of it and it held me in its clutches as if I were a bird in a cage. Costochondritis is commonly described as feeling like you are having a heart attack or an elephant is sitting on your chest. It's incredibly painful and makes every breath painful as well.

If it helps you to understand better, check out this image.

The chest is made up of many, many bones and joints. I could feel every single one.

I do not write this for your sympathy or pity. I do not write this to complain. My reason for posting this is to help raise awareness. Because I am just one of the mass of people out there living with daily pain. 

If you are one of those with chronic pain, I write this for you. I write this to say, "You are not alone!" 

{My daughter drew this picture to illustrate an elephant on Mommy's chest}

Pain takes its toll, especially severe pain. It is difficult, and sometimes not possible, to live a normal life of responsibilities and activities when pain is part of your daily reality. 

Please understand that we are not lazy if we sleep more than you do. We are not "lucky" to have frequent rest times. I cannot tell you how frustrating it is for me, as a person who thrives on being productive, to have to rest while life all around me doesn't stop.

And because life doesn't stop for chronic pain and illness, as it might temporarily pause for those who take a sick day from work, I have to learn what I can and cannot manage. I have pain every day, 24/7. I honestly can no longer remember what pain-free feels like. So please understand if I cannot watch your kids, lead out in activities or events, or if I have to cancel our afternoon get-together or play date.

I cannot express what a gift it is when people don't judge. When you say, "I'd love to get together but please feel free to cancel if you're having a bad day." When you're at the store and you text me to see if I need something picked up. These are real life examples of things my friends have done for me in the last week. You are a gift to me. Your understanding, or willingness to try to understand, is not something I take for granted. Thank you!

I firmly believe that if you just look for them, there will always be more blessings than struggles.

Giving Thanks: The Good and The Bad

{Savoring the Sweet Moments with my Youngest}

Thanksgiving is one of my very favorite holidays because it is a day to focus on all we have for which to be grateful.

One of the reasons I love Ann Voskamp and her book One Thousand Gifts and her blog A Holy Experience, is her emphasis on giving thanks for all we have. But this is not just a fluffy, cotton-candy-and-rainbows giving thanks. Oh no... this is the learning how to give thanks for every specific little gift, and for all of the hard things too, so that my life becomes a form of worship back to God, every breath a prayer.

If you are reading and you are thinking, You have no idea what I'm struggling with right now. You must have it good, you are right. I have no idea what you're struggling with, my friend. And I do have it good. I have all I need and more. I am truly blessed.

And there are hard things too...

pain
stress
worries
illness
exhaustion
loss
and the most recent, a terrible diagnosis for someone I love very much {please pray}

So because of the hard, I must keep counting the good. I must keep noticing it and taking stock of it, propping it on the shelves in my heart and pulling it to the forefront so it doesn't escape my sight.

Today, I keep taking stock of my Monday Mercies.

her blonde cornsilk hair and peaches & cream complexion
her long legs and Mama-like brown hair & another year of her life to celebrate
another day to notice and to worship
opportunities to speak love and encouragement
a second cup of coffee
clean sheets
colored Christmas lights strung across our little house
sunshine, God streaming across wooden floors
two hands, despite the swelling and aching
two legs, despite the occasional limping
a washer and a dryer, for recycling dirty into clean
music
a new prayer journal
spiral bindings to gather and hold, a pen to note and remember
the man that married me

Will you join me? Just start today. Start on a Post-it, if you like...

Monday Mercies: 10.24.11

Despite a cranky hip and a painful morning, there are no shortage of Monday Mercies today:

beautiful fall sunshine streaming in

leaves swirling down

this song by owl city. its intro feels like possibility

baking loaves of pumpkin bread

and a batch of peanut butter cookies

time with my girls

a phone chat with a friend

a new book in the mail

the aroma of cinnamon and cloves wafting from the oven

What are your Monday Mercies?

Monday Mercies: 10.17.11 {No Greater Mercy}

“There is no greater mercy that I know of on earth than good health except it be sickness; and that has often been a greater mercy to me than health…

It is a good thing to be without a trouble; but it is a better thing to have a trouble, and know how to get grace enough to bear it.” {C.H. Spurgeon}

Pondering this quote today and recognizing Truth. Thanks to Ann Voskamp for including this quote in her post.

My Monday Mercies...

sunlight spilling in on wooden floors
little girl legs in aqua tights, tucked into pink furry slippers
the learning, even when it's hard
the teaching, even when it's hard
jobs in this economy
flour for bread-making
washing machine to spin linens clean
pillow & heating pads to help combat pain
stacks of warm sweet laundry
sweet little faces
hands that hurt less today
marriage and partnership
autumn-hued leaves

What are your mercies today?

Gratitude for Every Season

There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven.
 A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest.
 A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to rebuild.
 A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance.
 A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
A time to search and a time to lose. A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak up.
A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace.
{Ecclesiastes 3, New Living Translation}

We go through seasons in life -- the weather changes, both literally and figuratively. For a long time, I only enjoyed certain seasons. But as I've grown (both older and hopefully wiser), I've begun to realize the beauty of every season. There are certain comforts that can only be appreciated during times of harsh weather.

Gratitude is the perfect accessory for every season. It looks great with shorts and flip-flops on a sunny beach day.

It layers perfectly with boots, jeans, a cardigan and a scarf for fall, the time of the year where some coldness and darkness creeps in.

Gratitude tucks easily in with the layers of winter, to keep you warm.

And in the spring it works like an umbrella to shelter you from the downpours.

I may live with chronic pain. I may be chronically ill. But I can also choose to be chronically grateful.

Just as there is beauty to be found in every season, beauty year-round, there is always something for which to be grateful.

In good times and bad, I can choose to be filled with joy, not just pain; filled with gratitude, not just limitations.

What are you grateful for?

The Gifts in the Pain

Last time I wrote about my health, in this post, I said that in a future post I would tell you about the hidden gifts found in chronic pain & illness.

To do that, I have to go back a bit.... back to 2005 when we found our tiny family going through something we never thought we would face. At an ultrasound towards the end of the first trimester of an uneventful pregnancy, we were told there was no heartbeat.

Losing that baby has been a defining event in my life. Just like marrying Jonathan and giving birth to Hannah and Natalie, losing our {very loved, wanted, and anxiously awaited} baby helped shape the person I am today.

Miscarriage was not something I knew much about. I did not have any close friends who had been through it, my mom had not experienced it, and although I knew it was a disappointing, sad, awful thing, I had never heard of the type of miscarriage that happened to me: Missed Miscarriage, meaning that for whatever reason, a woman's body does not catch on to what has happened when the baby stops developing or dies, and does not begin the process of passing the baby.

So when we went in that day, we were happy, jovial, silly, and frankly, naive to the realities of what women go through in doctor's offices and ultrasound rooms every day.

Just moments after we were calling the baby by both names we had already chosen (one for a boy and one for a girl), we were told there would be no baby after all. No baby coming home with us the following Spring, no baby sibling for Hanny, no baby kicking soon. No baby to use the Winnie the Pooh nursery decor I had just purchased.

No baby.

I had a procedure and it was supposed to be over. My body, they said, would heal quickly and we could wait a few months and try again, have another baby.

But just days after I thought it was over, the complications began...

In a nutshell, over the course of the next few years, there were infections, antibiotics, ER visits, ultrasounds, hospital stays, surgery, bedrest, no lifting, surgery, no lying down, a new pregnancy, PAIN, a healthy delivery, PAIN, surgery, PAIN, PAIN, surgery, PAIN stretching on for days and weeks and months and (literally) years.

I have no idea how those years looked from the outside, all I can tell you is bits of how it felt from within, but even that is a blur and graphic and a mixture of joy and grief and severe daily pain that is indescribable if you have never experienced it. I've said it before and I'll probably say it again: it's amazing how much pain the human body can endure.

The gifts in the pain of those years is still a stretch to identify, but I remember how light I felt when it finally began to back off. I felt like I was flying. I could run. I could lift my daughters. I could sleep without heating pads. I could mother without medication. I could truly live.

I vividly remember how good it felt and how I knew I would never again take for granted life without pain. I remember it well because it was not long ago -- not long before I began experiencing increasing levels of pain and stiffness in my spine, neck, jaw, hips, shoulders, ribs, chest, wrist & hands, knees, ankles & feet. Not long before I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease (a chronic disease) called Ankylosing Spondylitis. A disease that could  hunch me over and fuse (lock) my spine, a disease that could rob my ability to run, wreck my ability to walk, and devastate my ability to function daily.

It's been almost a year since I was diagnosed with AS, and some of the gifts that I had already found, thanks to experiencing deep personal loss, are firmly planted in my heart and outlook: a passionate desire to love with intention, to love well and consistently and to use my words to express that love before it is too late. I know now, and have felt all too keenly, the fragility and frailty of life. I have lost friends and classmates to car accidents, I have lost my very very dear and special Grama, completely unexpectedly and suddenly to a massive stroke at a young age. I have lost elderly and sick grandparents. But the most difficult, for me, has been the loss of a child. It's been nearly 6 years, and I still feel the hole in my heart and our family every day. It gets easier, yes, but it does not go away.

I believe one day I will hold that baby. Some days that is the only way I bear the absence of a child that was never here.

So what are the gifts?

I don't take those I love for granted.

I love with intention.

I use my words.

I use my creativity to heal.

I turn it around -- instead of asking every day, "Why am I going through this pain?" I look for the beauty around me, big or small, the overlooked things in nature, everything I can do that day, and I feel awe and wonder at it all and remember how very blessed I am to be alive; to be able to live this day.

I simplify. This was born out of my fatigue and pain levels, and serves me well as I limit what I do outside of our home so that I can better love and care for what and who is inside my home.

I slow down. This was born out of my inability to walk quickly, to stand for as long as I would like, etc... It's still hard for me, but I try to remember to take more breaks to rest, to snuggle my girls, to sit down and read to them, to make memories.

I do when I can -- When I can walk, I walk. When I can hold my girls without pain, I hold them. When I can get up early and be SuperMom, I donn my proverbial cape. I am so much more eager now to say YES! to life; to getting out in nature and being with those I love and to truly living.

So these are the gifts. They are beautiful, profound, sometimes-not-learned-until-late-in-life-or-until-it's-too-late gifts. I honestly feel very blessed to have been given them early in life, so I can better see what's important  and what's valuable and what truly matters.

These are the gifts. I hope they inspire or comfort you.

Breathe In, Breathe Out

The golden sunlight washes over our small coastal town and I breathe in a deep sigh of renewed strength, and breathe out a breath of thankfulness.

Tragedy rocked our community last week. A 33 year-old mother and her 8 year-old daughter were killed together in a horrible car accident. Our little town is mourning.

As the questions and grief raged within our hearts, the wind, rain, and hail raged outside our doors.

Wednesday we gathered to remember this beautiful duo that was an integral part of our little town. By Wednesday night I was emotionally drained, exhausted from the tears shed over these precious lives and this week's physical pain and anxious about new symptoms. I went to bed and cried and prayed and tossed and turned, tangled in sheets and hard questions.

Sleep finally came and the next day my little home and its wooden floors were bathed in the same beautiful, soul-renewing golden sunlight we have today.

I breathed in a deep exhausted breath and breathed out all the hurt and the fear and the questions, and remembered that God is still here, He hasn't changed, and that no matter what comes, He will walk with us.

Gratitude

In honor of Thanksgiving, I thought it would be fitting to talk about keeping a Gratitude Journal. Many journalers keep a separate book for recording things they are grateful for. I have done this in the past. Especially in hard times, making a point to search out what's good in your life and write it down can really boost your mood and give you courage. It works just as well to periodically make a list of things that make you happy, give you joy, bring you peace, or that you are grateful for in your regular journal. I make a point of doing an entry like this every Thanksgiving, and also at times when things seem bleak.

This week, sit down with a cup of hot apple cider, cocoa, coffee or tea, and write about the things in your life that you are thankful for. It can be an entry or just a quick list.

Feel free to share some of what you come up with.

Happy Thanksgiving!