RMC

The Austin Band. Let pain be your guide. These are lyrics to a song sung by a band quoted to me by a doctor I just saw about some ankle and foot problems I’ve been having. Stemming all from chronic pain in my foot.

I’m pretty sure when I filled out the paperwork for them to XRay my foot I marked the section that said I suffered from depression. I’m pretty sure my foot hurts as well.

It has been hurting for months but here recently after seeing a Podiatrist I have been wearing special shoes and insoles to remedy the problem. Then on the 12th of this month I was helping move a chair down some stairs.

I got about 3 steps from the bottom and inexplicably my foot felt like a muscle gave way and I fell forward and onto the chair we were moving. Weird thing was I was being mindful of it and holding on the hand rail of the steps.

You know, now that I think about it I haven’t felt a worse pain than I did after I fell other than the pain of living for the past forty something years.

The Podiatrist I’ve been seeing has been amazing. He knew exactly where the pain was and offered several different explanations before doing an MRI. I really appreciate him and all his work.

For the past many many years of my life I’ve been suffering from shame and regret from some of the choices and events that have occurred in my life. Pain has been imbetted into my soul. Regretfully.

What is tragic and what hurts more than my foot is that an Orthepdics doctor who took an XRay and then demeaned me as I was sitting in the doctors office, she didn’t know I heard her, told me it was a grade 2 strain of my achilles tendon. The actual words, “Let pain be your guide,” flew from her mouth like the bile did from the main character in the Exorcist.

My almost immediate response was to say to her student she brought in the room with her was, “hey, I bet she’s a pain in the ass to listen to all day,” I held back on. As the good nurse should have done.

But that is too rash. I should have responded thusly. I should have said the Lord Jesus Christ is my Savior and hope is my guide. Because as a young child, no matter the pain, I was always taught in Church to fight through the pain.

When I missed a pitch in a backyard pickup baseball game and the ball hit my nose, probably what deviated my septum, I walked it off.

When I bent my left ankle all the way to the left and bruised it horribly during a pre-tryout scrimmage in basketball, I fought through the pain and made my sophomore basketball team.

When I twisted my ankle no one even gave me a glance. I don’t know if it was because it was a juvenile competitive thing, or the fact I did not like mostly all of the people I went to school with other than the teachers I do not know.

What I do know is that I am giving this one up to the powers that be and forgetting about it. The pain in my life and the guidance I received from a very irrational person who is consumed by pride and what he calls duty, has done damage enough. Funny thing that this was actually one of his doctors he goes to. What a shocker.

But anger is a punishment we give ourselves for someone else’s mistake. I’m not angry. My foot is just in pain as is my psyche emotionally.

But I try everyday to fight through the pain. To overcome obstacles and learn from the past. I beg forgiveness if this is indeed too harsh. But I’ve learned I sleep better after getting things off my mind. As I am doing now.

God Bless You All,

Raven