Writing Workshop – Just how far I’ve come

Welcome back to the Wednesday Writing Workshop link-up! At the bottom of this post you’ll find the widget to post the link to your workshop posts – there’s been some absolutely AMAZING ones trickling in already, it’s going to be a great week I think! But first, I guess it’s my turn. I’m very behind as I spent all of last night doing something exciting for the Great Toy Guide (more about that later) so am going to have to pull something extraordinary out of my tired ass that doesn’t require much effort. Hmm… I think prompt #5 needs a follow-up…

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Well, since I don’t have that much time this morning, how about I show you exactly why I’m so scared of relapsing and getting very ill again. The good news is I very much doubt that I am – it’s looking like a brief bout of anaemia after all. But I need you to understand why I panicked a bit last week. Now, I struggled to find photos of myself from that time – I had a tendency to be the one behind the camera and destroyed many of the few snapshots that people took of me: I couldn’t bare to look at them because I hated what I saw so much.

This is me six years ago in 2003 in the horrible contraption that was my cage for so long:

I am leaning in the picture because I am to tired to sit upright and I am in the bloody thing because walking feels like have hot pins stabbed repeatedly in all my muscles. I’m dosed up to my eyeballs with strong pain medication and nerve-numbing drugs. Not fun. I look like shit don’t I?

Here I am a year later in 2004:

Aside from the fact that Ant looks so young and cute (aww!), look at the size of me?! I was HUGE. Not being able to move meant my metabolism slowed WAY down and I shot up to a size 18. Considering I’d always been a 10/12 this was BIG for me. And not good, voluptuous, curvy, sexy big. Just puffy and bloated. I have never felt so disgusting and useless in my entire life – there were a few photos that I just couldn’t bare to show. At least I look smiley in this one (and Ant!! the cuteness!!!).

I spent the next few years working my (large) ass off getting better. I started a VERY gentle but persistent exercise programme to try and get my body moving and get out of the awful cycle of Fibromyalgia that is pain=immobility=more pain because of immobility=even harder to move. I would start by walking to the end of my road and back with the help of a walking stick. That’s about 20 metres. Each day/week I would gradually increase the distance by a couple of feet. I’d get to THAT lamp post, then THAT fence, then THAT bollard. Some days I would push myself too far and end up in bed for the next three days and I’d have to reign back and start again. But I was getting there, agonisingly and frustratingly slowly, but I was. When I race off to playgroup these days I always pass these little markers and remember what a massive force of will it took to get me there and back. Such tiny distances  – even Kai could walk further these days!

Coupled with all of this I learnt breathing techniques to cope with the pain, I meditated, practised positive thinking and affirmations. I WOULD BE WELL. One day I made it as far as the little park round the corner and spent half an hour swinging high on the swing and crying because I finally felt like I was getting my freedom back.

Pretty soon I was able to walk as far as the nearby Esporta Gym which is about a five minute walk away. It was a huge break through. My family paid for me to join as a member and every other day, or there abouts, I would go and swim in the warm pool. I started a yoga class there twice a week which was probably the most influential aspect of my recovery of all. My muscles began to unknot, my mind unwound, I was still getting a lot of pain and relied on the support of a walking stick but I was moving through the pain, pacing my activity, able to do more and more. I was getting better.

The last time I used my wheelchair was in the Autumn of 2005 and I walked with a stick for another few months but not for long. By the New Year of 2006 it was obvious that I was on the mend. Photos from that year are amazing, every month I look more alive . Ant and I got engaged and started planning our wedding, finally confident that I would be able to walk down the aisle and dance our first dance – the image of which had often used as the one thing to keep me motivated and strong. I learnt to drive and in the September, I started back at work. I had a life again!

By the following Spring, on 26th May 2007, I got my dream:

I have never felt more alive, more vivid, more ME. At last. At long last.

I had done it!

Within four months I was pregnant with Kai. And the rest, well, you know the rest. My life is finally going in the direction that I want it to. I can run around with my beautiful boy; I’m writing and LOVING it and where it is taking me; I am married to the man that was my sole reason for surviving and persevering and who is the bone fide love of my life.

THAT is why I don’t ever want to get sick again, why it is my deepest, darkest fear.

I have come so far. And I’m not ever going back.

Not ever.

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So now it’s your turn! What prompt did you choose?

1.Write about what you hope for ‘one day’
- As inspired by Not Such a Yummy Mummy’s beautiful post last week.

2. Imagine a familiar household object is self-aware and concious. What is it thinking? What would it say?
- A very excellent suggestion by Eileen at Stuff and Things.

3. What would you like to see in your ideal hospital? I’d have Johnny Depp as my personal nurse, that’s just for starters…
- Inspired by the wonderful Troutie’s post about a trip to the hospital this week

4. You’re packing your bags and going off on an adventure with your children. Where are you going? How are you getting there? What would you pack, but more importantly, what would your children pack?
- Inspired my one of my favourite blog posts this week by Rosie Scribble who took her daughter off in search of some excitement.

5. Write about a deep and dark fear.
- Inspired by…ME! And all my worrying last week.

Leave your name and the URL to your post in the MckLinky below (the URL should be to your post not just to your blog) andleave me a comment to let me know you’ve taken part. If you have the time it would be great if you could try and read and comment on at least two other entries. And be kind! It’s supposed to be a bit of fun – we’re not looking for the next Booker Prize winner here!

If you haven’t had chance to respond yet, then you’ve still got today! Or just wait till next week, when there’ll be five brand new prompts to get you thinking.

This Writing Workshop is brought to you in association with Mama Kat’s Losin’ It – who’s lovely author came up with the concept and runs her own workshop over in the U.S.

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