Reboot

Blogging has been chiefly a place to set my thoughts and ideas free and not think too much about them afterward. I hadn’t ever considered that real people read what I write (with the exception of friends and family members whose arms I twist on occasion). Today I got a comment on my blog (which I haven’t looked at in ages) from someone whose arm that hadn’t been twisted. Where was I? How was I doing? Wow.

I stopped posting a little more than a year ago because frankly, it felt most days like I’d been shot with a tranq gun, hit by a pick-up truck and run over a few times. I was also very much aware of the dangers in identifying too closely with Sjögren’s Syndrome. Becoming my illness was not on the agenda, but what then? Its been a year of self discovery.

When first told that I had Sjögren’s I could have done cartwheels in the consultant’s office for joy. It was not MS! I wasn’t going blind! Hey, you can get old with this thing. The offer of psychological counselling was rejected out of hand. What, me worry? I was as happy as the proverbial clam. As long as neither of my worst case scenarios were happening, I could handle this.

Until I couldn’t.

My Crossfit scores were tanking. Losing stamina for the HIIT workouts was easy to write off to being a woman over 50, but the dramatic loss of strength and the feeling that my hands were constantly being squeezed in a vise were less easy to explain. I’ve been keeping a journal of WODs since beginning Crossfit and the numbers did not lie. I did the stupid thing and started coming up with excuses (some legitimate) not to train.

Outside the Box, I had no energy whatsoever and was developing into a champion napper. I became somewhat reclusive. If anybody should ask me how I was doing, it would be necessary to lie and I didn’t have the energy to keep that up. My fervent hope was that this too would pass. I watched a lot of Netflix.I drank too much wine.

This summer, glorious as it was (we used the pool a lot!) saw me bottom out. At the yearly consult with the Rheumatologist in June, an echogram showed the deterioration of the cartilage in my hands. Oh. So not immortal then. No spontaneous healing. Nope. After a stern lecture on the evils of using Ibuprofen as a structural form of pain relief, an appointment with the nurse specialist was arranged for later in the week and I went home to list my symptoms and gripes and, it has to be said, bawl for a few hours.

The nurse specialist was wonderful. She gave me some new stuff to help combat the dry mouth, told me to practise self-compassion and rest when I needed too. More warnings about Ibuprofen (really only indicated in infection) followed and she also gently suggested talking to a psychologist again. This time I agreed.

What I needed, and got from the counselling was guidance on how to accept this illness without becoming the illness and live the best, most active life I can. It wasn’t a plan whipped out of a Sjögren’s for Dummies. Through about 4 sessions, we addressed my expectations, needs and fears and I began to feel better able to cope.

In the meantime I bagged Crossfit. I just faded out. Didn’t cancel my membership, no drama or anything; I just slipped out the door the first week of July and stayed away. It was good for me. In the time away from the Box, I realized how much I like Crossfit and why; the crew, the community, feeling like a badass for an hour…The weather cooled off and the first week of September saw me back at the Box.

The goal for September was 1 WOD a week and running interval training on two other days. That went well. This month I’m on 2 WODs a week and  running interval training  on two other days plus stretching every morning. So far so good.