A year ago, yesterday, my husband and I moved to San Francisco from New York for a fresh start.  We had had a bad two years personally and work wise and we saw our move to the West coast as a new beginning.

Six weeks later I started having knee pain. I remember the exact day, where I was and what I was doing at the time. My osteonecrosis came on quickly and the pain was excruciating. I was in a wheelchair two months before I got the final diagnosis that it was ON.

In December I had to leave my husband behind in San Francisco to move in with my parents on the East coast. My husband couldn’t take care of me in our third floor walk up apartment and at that time I needed full time care.

When I came home I was severely depressed. I felt like my entire life had crumbled before me and that I had nothing to live for anymore. I couldn’t get through the day without crying multiple times. I would say I cried everyday for about 3 months.

It was sometime in early Spring when I realized how important it was that I had cried everyday. I had been grieving for the life I had lost. I needed to mourn, to get to the point when I could accept what had happened without being angry anymore and without questioning why this happened to me.

It was so vitally important that I had let myself grieve. It enabled me to gain a new perspective on life and to find a new meaning in my existence.

I’m not saying that everyday is easy, it’s not. I know I will never be the same person I was before I got osteonecrosis. I still have not experienced inner peace since having ON, but I think with anything hugely life changing you have to come to a place of acceptance within yourself. From this place is where I draw my strength.