loralees-freshed-over-noodles

Yeah. I limp. Not all of the time but most of the time I limp. I hurt almost all of the time. I've been managing pain since I was 17 years old. There are days like today when it is extremely hard to get out of bed. I have to give myself motivational talks just to get out of the bed and into the bathroom to go pee. Which I've been holding for some length of time. Cause I don't want to get out of the bed. Cause I don't want to walk. Cause I hurt.

I only spent about 3 or 4 hours on my feet yesterday but I find that when I spend that much time on my feet I suffer for it. My feet are completely stiff and ache like the devil. Why you ask? (Even if you aren't asking you should know by now that I am going to tell you.) Okay. Here goes. A little piece of my history. When I was 17 years old I was decorating for some stupid High School dance that I wasn't even planning on attending. One of my best friends was homecoming queen and head cheerleader and blah, blah, blah and she talked me into assisting her in decorating for this dance. Long story short: The teacher supervising us decided to run some errands. There was construction going on at the High School at the time. There was a big scaffolding in the room where the dance was being held. We decided to use it to hang streamers. It fell over with 2 of us on it. Yeah. We fell. We fell about 25 feet onto a solid cement floor. She landed on her back. Hairline fracture on one of her vertebrae. I landed on my heels. My heels took the whole impact of the fall and they shattered. Just my 2 little heels taking the whole impact of one teenage body. Was in the hospital for a week. Had surgery (thankfully, no pins!) and was in casts and a wheel chair for quite some time. There. There's the sordid little tale. Yes, there was a lawsuit. No, we did not make a lot of money. But I am reminded every single day of this little incident because I have to manage pain. Not only do you hurt but it is mentally fatiguing as well. The degree of mental fatigue coincides with the degree of physical pain.

I cannot believe that I worked for 2 years in a retail store a few years ago. Seriously. How did I do it? I stood on my feet for a full 8 hour day. Constantly. No sitting. I do remember there were times where I'd be saying to myself, "Okay, Loralee. You can do it. 3 more hours to go," while shifting from one foot to other. Then sometimes afterwards I would go off to a 4 hour gig and stand some more! The thought of that right now makes me cringe. I mean, look at me today. Whining cause I stood for 3 whole hours yesterday but I guess it's all relative, huh?

You know what's funny about all of this? You would think that after all these years I would be used to people looking at me funny when I'm having one of my "limpy" days but for the most part people are pretty cool. They'll even ask me, "What's wrong?" or "What happened?" and we'll have a nice little chat. It's all right. Here's the funny part. Young people will not stare at you if you're limping across the college campus however they WILL look away uncomfortably or will look at you pityingly if you have a roly poly little suitcase for your books at college. Seriously.