I’ve spent the last two days nursing a seized up low back, an injury that flares up when I don’t listen to my body telling me to slow down.
The injury dates back to when my first born was just around two years old. Even though we were still a family of three at the time, I spent 80 per cent of the time single parenting. (He spent 40 per cent of the time working and the other 40 with friends until late in the evening. )
I was parenting a toddler (cue lifting, bending, picking up, rocking, repeat) at the same time running a dynamic seven day a week children’s entertainment business with my husband. We had 10 plus employees, a 4000 square foot unit and worked in 6 municipalities. Too say I was busy and under stress was an understatement. Similar to the parenting, I took on the brunt of the business both behind the scenes and in the classroom. I was an instructor, a staff trainer, the accountant, the marketing manager, the administrator and the mom.
My weight whittled away as the stress of the marriage compounded with the stress of the day to day work load. My emotional well-being and my physical well-being were hanging by a thread...we were incredibly successful financially but I was struggling to keep my own health afloat.
Eventually my body said enough, you can’t continue like this...my back seized up completely one morning in the shower so badly that I was unable to get dressed or lift my daughter out of her crib. My husband dropped me off at the front doors of emerg, where I wanted for hours in a crippled state. I felt defeated, scared and hopeless....and alone. When they said it’s better to be lonely alone than lonely with someone, they weren’t lying.
It would be months and months of physio, pain killers, chiro and massage...eventually I went for an MRI that told us I had three herniated discs in my low back and the beginning of osteo arthritis. I had been carrying too much weight figuratively and literally for too long.
Though my health care physicians did not know the root of my ailments, I knew in my heart it was the marriage that was slowly sidelining me ...my body and my spirit.
It was a huge wake up call for me, and one my body still likes to remind me of when I take on too much. I began to slow down, I started practicing yoga again, I shared my secret with a confidant at the time, I asked for help with my daughter ...and I began my plan ....to get better, stronger and leave the marriage that was destroying me.
This is my fight song.
Take back my life song
Prove I'm alright song
My power's turned on
~R Platten
Here I am with my sisters at my frailest, it’s hard for me to look at this photo always a reminder of tough days.
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