seven years

I’ve heard that it takes seven years for the body to regenerate all its cells.

Seven years.

It doesn’t happen all in one go, like BAM! Seven years is up so you’re a whole new person now!

It’s gradual. Change happens as we go about our daily routine, yawning as the kettle boils, pulling on a warm coat as the days get colder, slouching lower and lower in front of the laptop as the clock counts down to the end of the work day.

I don’t even notice it, really. It’s not like this cycle ends with a fireworks display and angels singing a chorus of hallelujah (although that would be fitting since the human body is amazing) – it just happens.

Seven years go by.

Yesterday marked seven years since my car accident.

Seven years of seeing doctors and lawyers and physiotherapists. Crying over my inability to dribble a basketball with my right hand, sinking into 18 hours of sleep every day when the pain was at its all time worst, feeling the bones in my feet shift out of place when I ran for the first time after being on a couch for five months. Walking into class with a massage table imprint on my face, waddling back to the parking lot after IMS on my hip flexors, napping in the car next to my mama as she drove me back from seeing my neurologist.

Seven years of pain. Everyday.

That’s almost a third of my life.

Chronic pain doesn’t make sense to a lot of people. Heck, I can’t even believe I’ve survived seven years of it.

Being the stubborn athlete I was in high school, I didn’t think little things like blood flow so weak to my arm I couldn’t raise my hand or headaches so bad I couldn’t concentrate on homework or ribs so tight I couldn’t breathe properly were really going to stop me from living life and playing basketball (which, in reality, were the same thing to me back then).

Those aren’t little things, Jensen.

A few months after the accident I still wasn’t getting better. An undiagnosed concussion led to more problems, which turned into staying at home in the dark and sleeping for hours on end. I spent a few months at home, missing school, feeling nauseas all the live-long day from medication, hardly ever moving much more than from my bed to the couch and back every day because of the pain.

Those months of staying at home changed me.

The pain pushed me to the edge of my already high pain tolerance. Some days were a win if I got through an entire pool rehabilitation session, other wins were as simple as staying awake until after lunch.

The isolation burned the need for community into my heart. Ever missed a day of high school? It’s like everyone and their dog had something happen to them while you were gone. Imagine all the things that happened while I missed the last three months of grade 11 and was stuck at home the entire summer before grade 12.

Tough doesn’t even begin to describe the loneliness I experienced.

But that’s not the point of this. I’ve dealt with those things – I still have bad pain days where all I can do is spend some quality time with my hot water bottle and the couch and I still feel the deep need to be seen, but those days of constant pain and heartache are done.

The point is that after seven years, I’m ready to deal with everything else. After seven years my settlement is over – I can move forward without fear of injuring myself further and hurting my case, I can invest more time into strengthening my body and rehabilitating it again, I can speak freely about my experience without looking over my shoulder for someone to say, shh! Not yet! Let your lawyer speak for you until your case is closed!

I have reservations. I’ve lived with chronic pain for so long that I don’t know any different. Can I really be strong again? Can I really lift those weights without injuring myself? Can I really wake up and feel like my body can handle anything the day throws at it?

This little blog has become a place for me to share my story. And this? This is a gigantic piece of it. It’s not finished and packed into a neat little box with a pretty bow wrapped around it. It’s messy and painful and fights to get out of the box so fiercely that it pushes me onto the living room floor for a few days sometimes.

But it’s mine. And seven years is long enough to keep it in.

I have to retrain my brain. I’m now at a place where strength training and massage and maybe even physio will be part of my every day life again. I need to break the habit of saying, “No, recovery isn’t possible after all this time!”

Instead, I want to say, “Yes, after seven years it’s about damn time I recover!”

The commitment to change something drastic like that is not something that feels particularly comfortable.

But improvement only comes from being uncomfortable.

I can’t change on my own. I need support and encouragement and open conversation about this change, especially when this mountain I’m climbing feels just too high to get over with this weak body.

I’m scared, but I’m so excited, too. I’m excited to feel relief. Relief that the legal side of things is done, relief that now I can fully explore what the past seven years have meant to me, relief that I’ll be able to feel physical relief soon.

I’ve spent almost a third of my life being timid with this body of mine, this part of my story. The accident was sudden and unexpected, but the change that followed was gradual.

I mean, hokey dinah – seven years have gone by.

I know that just because the date signifying those years has passed doesn’t mean I’m all of a sudden a new person. No fireworks or singing angels popped out yesterday.

But change is happening.

 

PS. My sister took that photo for the photography class she was in during the time I wasn’t at school. Those may have been dark days, but this is proof that some days didn’t suck as much as others – and I want to remember that.

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