"..it is not requisite

that Amanda should run faster than she has strength.." Mosiah 4:27 (with slight alteration...)

So, sometimes it seems as if everything follows a cyclical pattern. There's the economy, which takes its turn going through recession & expansion... There's the pride cycle, which does pretty much the same thing except you replace the temporal with the spiritual... There's the relationship game, which I have long been convinced that I only date someone I really like every two years... & then there's health. Okay, so health doesn't really travel in a cycle (maybe a bicycle...?), but there are some things that keep coming back to me. Sort of like a painful deja vu, if you will...

When I was in fourth grade, I sprained my ankle, which put an end to my dreams of becoming a great jazz saxophonist (really, that was a blessing to the whole world-- I'm terrible on the sax...). Anyway, I was on crutches for about two weeks, which is never fun, but it's some unwritten rule that everyone has to be on crutches at some point in your life, & it may as well happen when the worst consequence is that you can't carry your sax to school anymore instead of your can't make it to class or work on time. So, no big deal, that came & went, blah blah blah. The really crummy thing was what happened like a month or so afterward.

So, the day before the absolute coolest field trip in the fourth grade (CA Gold Rush Days-- where you get to go hiking in the hills or something & pan for gold, pretending that you're one of CA's early settlers or something..) I felt a bit of a painful twinge in my hip whenever I tried to move it in a certain direction. Hmmm... Maybe that's just sore from not really being able to walk on it a couple weeks ago, right? I'll just sleep it off- it doesn't hurt that bad, & it'll probably just go away in a day or two like my sprained ankle did.. Cue ominous music. I wake up the next morning, & all was pain. I couldn't move either of my legs without this excruciating pain that shot through both of them. This was not the dull ache of a sprain, but like someone was jabbing a hot spear into me whenever I thought about moving them even a fraction of an inch... My mum had to help me change into a dress because there was no way I could even try to get pants on. Luckily I'm a girl & that is socially acceptable. My brother (I can't remember which one- I was in pain & it was over 13 years ago...) had to pick me up to put me in the van, & I get to take a field trip to the doctor's office. No CA Gold Rush Days for me... My family physician can't tell what's wrong with me, the x-rays show no abnormalities, so they ship me off to the medical facility in Fontana (about a half hour drive east of our city, off the 10, depending on traffic), where I stay for six days. Not even a full week. I'm really not sure what was wrong with me. They couldn't tell at first what was wrong with me- or, at least, they didn't tell a 10 year old what was wrong with her- but there were words thrown about like 'water-on-the-knee' {a build up of white blood cells in single location that gives the swollen appearance}, 'severe acute arthritis', & even the possibility of 'lime disease'. Hey now~ I wasn't eating any limes to get like this, someone please tell me what's going on! Grrr... It took me a week to be able to really move my legs again without that huge pain. I remember my dad sleeping on the chair next to my bed each night. Probably the best memory of his love for me that I have of him. Other than his last "words" to me being "I love you"(since he really didn't have any teeth or a voice at that point, I'm not sure if it counts for actual words). Anyway, I couldn't stand that ordeal. I'm not sure if I really did have lime disease, or if that was just the closest thing they could relate it to...

So, after that, every couple of months I would have a day or two when I couldn't move one or both of my legs in a certain way, but that eventually stopped. Until 7th grade, & I vividly remember a girl in my PE class (Amanda Brockman) coming at me while swinging a baseball bat & saying that she had escaped from a mental institution & was going to kill all other Amanda's out there... Maybe that's why I don't much like watching softball or baseball... But since then, no, not so much with the days of not being able to walk or move. Every now & then I wake up to a huge leg spasm, or my foot will randomly decide to cramp up for a half hour. Meh, I can deal with it all, no biggie. But, I hope you can appreciate why I get really nervous/scared/anxious whenever doctors tell me that whatever I'm going through is not normal (bleeding without pain) & that they don't really know why it's happening, just that it is. I hate going from one doctor to the next just to be told that they don't know exactly what's wrong, but maybe this other bloke can take a look around & see how to fix you. I don't want a bandage, I want the name of the condition! A name is a most powerful weapon. For instance, now that I know I have UC, I can know what to expect, how to treat it, & when to seek help if it gets worse.

Sunday afternoon I had another episode that reminded me of fourth grade. Starting in the afternoon, & progressing all evening, I couldn't move my right leg without at least a little pain. By the time I decided that it would be a good hour to sleep, my leg wouldn't let me. There was absolutely no position that I could find myself in that wasn't very painful. I was up for at least an hour or two, & I could barely hobble around on my one good leg. I was crying. I was scared. It reminded me so much of the pain I felt 13 years ago & had to be hospitalized for; I didn't want to have that happen again. I don't know how or when I finally fell asleep for the first time. Probably around 3. Then waking up at 5-6 to take some more pain killers, followed after a while by another 2 hour nap. Then I figured I'd read a bit upstairs from Jane Austen's Emma, & that's quite a boring book, so I fell asleep for a half hour then, too. Beside the point. The point, if there is one, is that this experience really terrified me. I have some plans that I really want to be able to execute, but if this stuff randomly happens to me, then how will I be able to walk or bike ride up to 15 miles-ish per day? How will I be able to manage not being able to see a doctor when time is no longer an available commodity? So much is coming in my way for what I'm aiming at, & I don't want to be blown off course. I have a work to do, & it will get done, whether I can literally move or not.