My back is in a terrible shape again. I haven’t been able to get out of my bed since last morrning, after my short walk. It’s been spasming pretty badly, making it difficult to rest.

Clearly, it can’t handle much activity at the moment. And, that’s fine too. It’s only understandable.

Last 5 days or so have been rather busy (strenuous for my body) with hospital visits and I also attempted walking a small distance yesterday and day before. Obviously, it doesn’t feel great seeing that my back has lost so much strength due to a flare up at the start of this year.

I haven’t fully recovered yet and I can tell that recovery is going to take MUCH long than what I first anticipated. In fact, somewhere after 4 months of being bedridden, I stopped wondering when I’d be okay because it was only making things harder. I was doing everything right, putting all the tools I’ve learned over last so many years to use, resting as much as possible and yet my back wasn’t improving.

Once again, I realized that the only thing in my control is/was my response. I was doing my very best. My body was going to take its time to heal and I couldn’t magically put my back together and make it okay. That’s not how it works :) All I could do was continue doing things that could potentially help my back recover. I figured I’d rather accept the new baseline, the present, and learn to work around it.

Comparing myself to last year wasn’t helping just like comparing myself to pre-illness didn’t help when I was learning to accept my new reality. It made me feel stuck. I’m now at a point where even if I accidentally happen to push it, I might get bedridden all over again and I’d hate for that to happen.

Learning to work around new a baselines (and we may have many new ones in future since it’s a chronic illness) is the only way forward. Unfortunately, you take a risk each time you attempt taking a small step forward — you can’t fully be sure it won’t hurt you and you won’t know till you try. #chronicillness

See where you’re at, listen to your body and take a measured step forward. If it works, be patient and continue to take slow, measured steps. If it doesn’t, be EXTRA gentle with yourself — rest, adapt and try all over again.