Me and Rachel
I’m still around, just haven’t been in a writing mode I guess. It’s funny, because once you actually announce change, you get hit from all angles with just…tests. And tested I have been. This week has been hard from many angles, but nothing I have experienced can come close to the biggest part of this week.
My dear friend had a very serious medical procedure for a horrific disease called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. It’s an incurable, excruciatingly painful disease.
It’s in her shoulder and arm (and her dominant one at that), and to add to it, she also has a torn rotator cuff, which cannot be repaired because of the damage from the RSD. And she’s working through all of this, too (and I don’t mean mentally, though that too, I mean she goes to work everyday). And I know she must get comments that are well-meaning but frustrating. It’s not like any other chronic pain disease; not by a long-shot. On the McGill Pain Index, pain is scaled. A bone fracture is a 17, non-terminal cancer is a 26. Chronic back pain is a 30. Unmedicated childbirth is a 37. The pain from RSD, which is constant and without end in sight, is a 42. The wind from a rolled-down window causes excruciating pain; so does her own clothes.
