Stumbling. For some of us, we stumble a lot. In my life, I've stumbled due lack of knowledge or ignorance. I've stumbled because I refused to learn lessons. But, one thing I've rarely done is stumble physically.
By September my journey had come to physical stumbling. I was getting scared. I tried the "self diagnosis" via the Internet. One thing I've learned; if you want to be scared to death, diagnose yourself by searching the world wide web! The symptoms I was having seemed to point to things like MS, Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS) or some other drastic neurological disease. I did find a few things about tumors but I just had never really thought about spinal tumors.
I sought out a medical doctor and a new chiropractor at the same time. The medical doctor saw me two times and essentially dismissed my symptoms. He asked if I wanted medicine for my numbness as this may just be idiopathic. I told him I didn't and that I wanted to know the source of this numbness. As you can imagine, I did not return to this doctor. My new chiropractor carefully listened to my symptoms and would eventually stop treating me with the recommendation that I get an MRI.
I could barely navigate the stairs in our home. When I attempted to walk around furniture I'd nearly fall over. By October, basic things like taking a shower or walking the 150 feet to our mailbox was getting extremely difficult.
The scariest time of the day was getting out of bed. For a number of months, I'd been having "convulsion-like" episodes at night. I'd awaken several times a night, struggling to get back to sleep. Since my wife is a light sleeper, I'd elected to sleep in another room. She rarely saw my struggle to get out of bed and begin walking. Like most things in life, when we stumble or fall, we prefer not to have others around to see. But each day, it was getting harder to hide how much I was stumbling.
I now had come to the point in this journey, when I needed to share how much I was struggling and ask for help. Perhaps you can relate to me? Have you stumbled alone long enough for it to scare you? Is it time to expose your stumbling and ask for help?
No comments:
Post a Comment