Sickness and Injury

I have hurt my back again.  I cannot bend over without sharp pains and I am unable even to put on socks or shoes without help.  I have started my McKenzie exercises and hopefully this will accelerate my recovery.  I have had episodes of this nature every 7 to 10 years since my college days, when I played a handball match on a cold winter’s day without warming up adequately.  Some of these episodes curtailed my activity for months, but more recently I have been able to limit the impact to 4 or 5 lost days and then a week or two of limited disability.

I seem to fall prey to many ills!  I say this not to court pity or sympathy, because I don’t really find those things very helpful. It is simply a fact.  My primary malady, a disease I have had all my life, is PCD (primary ciliary dyskinesia).  The cilia in my lungs and sinuses do not ‘wave’ as normal cilia should, but simply ‘vibrate’.  I saw this with my own eyes under light microscopy when I had this diagnosis confirmed in 1999 at the University of North Carolina. Before that I was uncertain why I was getting sick all the time.

The lack of ciliary motion means that the stagnant secretions in my respiratory tract are enthusiastic hosts for bacteria! Thus, I have had a lifelong battle with respiratory infections.  I carry antibiotics wherever I go and have had long periods when I was continuously on antibiotics.  One year my diary logged over 80 days when I had a fever.

I was fortunate to grow up in the golden era of antibiotics, and I was very active athletically all my life, or I might be far worse off.  My lung function is currently about 70% of the expected for my age. I run several times a week and do daily nebulizer treatments to stave off additional damage (bronchiectasis due to colonized bacteria).

As if this wasn’t enough of a reminder of my mortality and all-to-human frailty, in about 2005 I began having serious migraine problems.  No one in my family has a migraine history, and I had never had one before.  At first, they came infrequently, but slowly they became more frequent and now I must take medication (triptans) between 7 and 15 times a month to abort the episodes.  If I am not quick enough, the ensuing migraine is totally disabling and I end up in an agonized state, vomiting and losing anywhere from 12 to 20 hours of life!  Fortunately, I have become quite adept at managing this and I rarely succumb to the full migraine these days.  But I have had to give up alcohol, chocolate and a variety of other foods that are guaranteed triggers for this condition.  I have now added triptans to the pharmaceutical lifeline that I carry with me everywhere I go.

But it doesn’t stop there!!  In my efforts to identify a cause for my migraines I became aware of the fact that I have degenerative disk disease in the cervical spine (my neck).  It is unclear whether this is in any way connected to my migraines, or whether the more or less permanent sinus infection in my frontal sinuses plays a role.  At any rate, in the last year this has become an additional nemesis and I have daily pain in the area of my cervical-thoracic junction.  Physical therapy has helped a little but not much.

It is easy to fall prey to self-pity when one is sick or hurt, but it is hard and futile to indulge it over the long term.  I know that there are multitudes who are far more stricken with health issues than I am, and I know that my own life has been blessed with undeserved good fortune on many fronts.  We all battle with our own individual demons and we can only guess at the circumstances that others must face, which can be both visible and hidden.

Life goes on, doesn’t it?  And to be quite honest, I don’t really feel like my quality of life is any worse for all of the problems that I face.  Somehow my psyche adjusts for the pain, discomfort, lost days and other ramifications of these health impairments.  I am always aware of them – asking myself off and on throughout each day, as I have always done, whether I am starting to get a respiratory infection or whether the first signs of a migraine are present – but somehow this awareness does not generally weigh me down or depress me. 

This is the beauty of the human spirit!  It can seek joy and optimism even under fairly challenging circumstances, and reward its owner with a relatively positive life experience.  I hope and trust that I shall be able to carry on with the courage that each life imbues on its mortal denizen.  And I will seek every interesting and fulfilling moment that the rest of my life can provide!