Now on the to the second stage of Dr. Martins Chronic Illness Grief Cycle. (Dr. Jennifer Martin altered Elizabeth Kubler Ross’s original “5 Stages of Greif” to a seven stage iteration for chronic illness.)
Dr. Martin calls the second stage, “Pleading, Bargaining, and Desperation.” We eventually accept the words of the change or diagnosis, but not the reality of life changes. We try to find a way to keep life “normal.” But “normal” is gone.
CRPS/RSD
I was undoubtedly desperate when my neurologist told me that I had CRPS. I had hoped my surgeon would disagree. But he looked at both legs and said: “Oh, I see.” Since I had been through this before, I didn’t linger in this stage.
Loss of Physical Strength
I asked my neurologist how I could be losing strength with everything I was doing?
- Two visits a week to a physical therapist to work on the legs;
- One day a week with a trainer at a gym to keep the upper body strength; and
- Daily physical therapy at home.
The answer was it is just part of the disorder – keep fighting, or you will lose faster. The loss of strength, despite all my efforts, was disconcerting. My first thought was to stop trying to gain muscle, but then I remembered working on strength might be the key to remission. So I will keep working, with the assumption that I will go into remission.
Mental Fog
Even though I am not taking any opioids this time around, I have the same “mental fog,” which I noted for my medical team the first time.
At a conference in Dallas, I was in a group, and the leader asked every table to “count off.” Even though I learned about counting in Kindergarten and spent my entire career as an engineer, at that instant, I could not come up with a meaning for “counting off.” I am an engineer – why can’t I count?
Again I am targeting remission. I got all my mental abilities back last time.
Travel Restrictions
COVID-19 travel restrictions are much more restrictive than my issues with CRPS, so everyone is struggling with the same constraints but for a different reason. Three is no point in trying to bargain this away.
