Can't go back, gotta move on

[pecunium]

Yesterday I was at the VA. It was one of the hardest days of my life. Not phsycially, not mentally, but emotionally.

It was my interview/physical exam for the question: How disabled is Staff Sergeant Karney.

The interview took a bit more than an hour. Draining. I don't like to think of myself as being damaged/handicapped/disabled. I am. I know I am. I am reminded of it every day. The pills, the aches, the things I can't do as well as I used to (ride horses, hike, open jars); all of those combine to make it plain to me that I am not completely whole.

But to list every one of them, to haul my mind back to the beginning, and recount the onset, and the various pains and indignities my disease inflicted, and continues to inflict... that was new.

I left, and went to get some brekkie. I called CG and asked if she wanted to join me, because I needed a comforting presence. I didn't eat but a bit of my cheescake, and probably rambled about tings which didn't really relate to the problems on my mind.

Then I went back; for the exam.

That took longer. I know why she was so thorough, it's a big deal, and all they really have to go on is the records on file, my testimony about how things are for me, and the exam.

I've seen questionable horses, being purchased by dubious buyers which were less carefull examined. She was friendly, and warm, and probably has as good a beside manner as anyone could hope for.

But it was still more than an hour of being on a table in my nothing by my undershorts, while I was poked, prodded, twisted, folded, bent and brushed. I am more sore on my right, less mobile on my right. I can push better than I can pull. It's possible I have Reynaud's Disease.

I went back to CGs and made dinner, talked about random stuff, and passed out. Slept like a log, and headed to school.

I'm broken. I'm not destroyed. I may (almost certainly, actually) be completely fit again. It sucks. I hate it.

So what? I've been stuck in a strange head space for the past 6 years. Some of it mild PTSD, some of it denial, some of it minor self-pity.

Ok, that was bad. Some of it is still bad. Today is what it is, and that's as much as I am gonna get. One foot in front of the other and keep on moving.

I ain't dead, so we call it a win.

Comments

[martin-wisse.livejournal.com]

I've got some (secondhand) experience of what you went through in that exam, through my partner, who in real life isn't disabled, she just has those limitations of her sodding body she has learned to live around you know, until she has to go to hospital, her routine is broken and she has to tell yet another set of doctors her medical history.

It's not just physically uncomfortable, but such an exam confronts you with the hard reality of what's wrong with you, stripped of the defence mechanisms we all use to keep the truth away. No wonder you were drained afterwards.