2017... What a year, what a downright, absolute pig of a year. I can't wait to see the back of it. Never have I experienced such mental and physical stress before.
I'll start at the beginning... Hold on to something this is going to get a little bumpy.
In October of last year I got married to the love of my life, we had a lovely wedding with all of our friends and family it was a dream come true, I should have taken nature's warning at the end of the night when the wind rushed in and forced us out early!
But here comes the badness
About this time last year I busted my knees and had to have X-rays and an mri on them to see what the problem was, turns out I have a compression of Hoffa's fat pad which is like a shock absorber in the knee so that means my knees are taking more force than they can handle which is something that will never go away but the pain will come and go. I was out of work for a few weeks with excruciating pain and had to go to a physio to help me build strength and stretch the right places to help aid my recovery.
In January of this year I was suffering excruciating foot pain, I always have some sort of pain in my feet because I have plantar faciaitis which is a thickening of the tendon that runs under the foot which happens when you have a high arch, the tendon stretches to much and causes pain. But the pain is usually manageable, this time it wasn't, something else was going on. So off to the doctors I went, she said to get an X-ray to see what is going on. "you have a bone spur on your heel, but that's likely been there a long time; OK so it's not that, maybe it's just inflammation of the facia, get an ultrasound" so I did that, "it's a bit inflamed". So she said "you can either go and get some physio which would take some time to heal, or maybe get an ultrasound guided steroid injection, which is the quick fix which may not actually help in the long run but will take care of the pain now". At this stage I had already been out of work for 2 weeks and really couldn't afford to have any more time off, so I went with the steroid injection. So I'm at the imaging place they're getting everything ready, the lady starts ultrasounding my foot and ankle again and then stops "hmm, I think I need to get the doctor" she returns with the doctor. The doctor proceeds to tell me that they won't be going ahead with the steroid injection because I have a 50% tear in my Achilles tendon and that I need to go back to my doctor and get in to a specialist up at flinders hospital... So three weeks off work turns in to 3 weeks and 4 months in a moon boot, not to mention I was in and out of work when I got back to it because I was still in recovery and struggling with the pain. So all up I think it was probably about 6 months off work.
All of this time off work brought with it great financial struggle, it wasn't an injury that I could claim on work cover because it's a grey area, it's a wear and tear injury, they couldn't say I did it at work. I could, because that's exactly where it happened, it's deemed a sports injury, I don't play sports... The only strenuous thing I do is work, the next hardest thing I do is clean up around the house which is nowhere near as hard as my work is. So yeah, I used all of my sick pay and most of my annual leave when I busted my knees last year, so that means for 6 months I was relying on less than half of what I was usually getting from work which caused me to push more and more bills further and further back until the companies wouldn't give us anymore chances, I'm still trying to get on top of it all to this day, and probably will be for a time to come.
Basically as soon as I was well enough to go back to work, my wife came down with a mystery illness that sent her to the hospital more times than I can count including a few weeks stay. Which was really hard for both of us, waiting around constantly in and out of hospital, ambulance rides, taking time off work to take her to hospital or bring her home, sleep was a distant but fond memory. All of this lasted about 2 months... At first, then she got sick again with the same thing about a month later, they still have no idea what it was, they think auto immune but they never gave us a concrete diagnosis, it was all guessing basically.
In between her hospital visits I got a toe injury which took me out of work again for a few days, X-rays and scans lead to nothing... Then I slipped a disc in my back moving furniture and I crumpled to the floor in complete agony and couldn't move. I had my own ambulance journey along with so many painkillers to try and numb the pain as best they could but nothing seemed to help so yeah another week out of work, with light duties for 2 more after that.
By this stage work has had enough of me calling in sick and have started to question the legitimacy of my days off. I've been out with so many injuries this year which I directly relate to work which has lead me to the point that my body is screaming at me to find something less strenuous on my body, it's breaking down bit by bit.
Remember how I said before about how we were on our last chance with all of the bill companies, all of the extra time off and my wife off from her work has only compounded our financial woes even further.
Now we move ahead to October of this year... My wife of not even a year decides to leave me, citing that I'm not giving her what she wants in a relationship. Which is fair, if I'm not giving her what she wants she has every right to leave me and find her happiness. But that still left me with a gaping wound that I am left to heal on my own.
So you could say I've had a tough year... You could even say a cunt of a year.
I've taken so many hits this year but I'm still standing, I've learnt a great many things, I've grown so much and I'm feeling good, somehow after all of that, I feel good. Huh...that even felt weird to type out, but it's true. Just goes to show you the true strength of the human spirit.
I've got a few more scars, I feel worn down, I have fought through all of this and never once have I succumb to those feelings of doubt, depression and helplessness. I feel them but I manage them rather than being overwhelmed by them. I get a little anxious from time to time, I feel a little nervous in large crowds of people I don't know. But I'm still me at the end of it all, I still have those things that make me, me. And if I can get through what's happened this year, that will never change.
Vikinghammer out!
