Today I had my follow-up with my Orthopedic doctor. We received some really good answers. We learned that my back issues were not the result of bulging disks or pinched nerves as what we were led to believe over the last 20 years. The majority of the pain is likely from the awaiting diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis and Ankylosing Spondylitis. The hip pain is coming from an impingement inside the hip. Thankfully there is not a tear so there will be no surgery. Treatment for the impingement is Physical therapy until that doesn’t work then we will look at an injection as a last resort. It sounds like the meds for arthritis will likely help with everything that we learned about today.
I am still scared about the meds, I fear the side effects and lots of other things. I am fearful about what my future looks like. I fear what my body is doing now and what damage might have been done or what is being done. I fear doing things for fear that I will put my body back in a compromised state. I fear that my headaches wont ever go away or that my eye won’t get better. I fear eating anything because it might make my body hurt even though I haven’t found anything that has caused it to to react. I fear that what I am eating or doing is preventing my eye from healing. So there are lots of things I’m afraid of even after getting answers today. I was terrified today that we would find something more serious and I’m grateful for what we did find.
I don’t know what RA and AS will dish out for me in life. My mom reminded me that I will still be who I was beforehand. That I will still care about people like I have before. That I will still do things. But the thing I fear is that I won’t be able to do it very well, or that my life will be even more limited to what I can do. Tonight I find it really hard to trust that God is in control. I know he is but I just don’t understand.