It’s been several weeks since I last posted. It wasn’t that I had forgotten about my site, I just wanted to take a moment to step back and live in the now. I have spent all my life either dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. One of the valuable lessons I have learned due to having osteonecrosis is to live in the moment and embrace the good that I am experiencing now.
Mid February I had new MRIs performed. When my doctor went over the results with me he could still see evidence that my disease had not progressed. It has never reached my knee joints and there were patches on the MRI where bone has started to heal itself. At first I was very excited about the news. My husband and I celebrated that night by going to one of our favorite restaurants in our neighborhood. However, the next day I woke up with doubt in my mind, I spent all day driving myself crazy wondering if he misread the MRIs.
I was thinking why should I be so lucky. Can this really be true. At the moment I can only walk about 8 blocks with my cane and can stand for about 20 minutes without having pain and fatigue. I still take tramadol three times a day. I forget that a year ago at this time I couldn’t walk at all and standing was impossible. However, his prognosis seemed too good to be true. I ruined the moment for myself. I ruined the joy I had received from the good news. I talked to my therapist about my excessive worrying and she asked me if worrying had ever changed the outcome of anything and I said no. That’s when I decided I was going to step back for a few weeks from my site. It was good for me to take time off. I’ve been focusing on my physical therapy and the fact that I have been able to walk more and more. I’ve been enjoying my husband and our life together.
I was listening to a very sad story on the radio the other day. I started weeping and then hysterically crying, It was like a dam burst in side of me. A woman had a son born with a very rare genetic disease. From the age of 6 months her son went backwards in development and in the end died in February of this year at the age of four after having lived in hospice care for most of his life. She said people would often say to her,”I would die if I were you”, “I could never deal with having a child with a terminal illness”. The response in her mind was: no you wouldn’t die and secondly you would have to deal with it. There isn’t another option. She said people talked to her with pity and she knew deep down that she was just a reminder to them of how fragile life is. That everything can change in a moment. The moment a doctor gives you a diagnosis. The moment you look it up on-line and realize what the ramifications are. No one is invincible, no one. This woman’s story touched me not only because of the loss of her child but because of her strength.
I don’t know what the future holds, none of us do, but this is my reality at the moment and I’m going to try to embrace the life I am living now. No I’m not the same person I used to be. I have days when I feel extremely depressed and don’t think I can take this anymore, but if I really think about it, I still have so many good things in my life. You and I know how fragile life is, we have a perspective so many others will never have. We know how precious the now is.
Osteonecrosis (Avascular Necrosis) 