Day 18 – 30 years

 
I am awake, I am alive, and this morning only one phrase is echoing through my brain … 30 years. Yet, I remember that day as if it were yesterday, the chain of events that changed my life.

I was 27, doing my best to provide for my 6 and 4-year old, a single Mom working fulltime at my federal government office job. I was standing in front of my coworker’s desk as he related the details of a file. My boss, on his own mission, digging in the lateral filing cabinet behind me.

We didn’t know the cabinet was defective. We didn’t know it would tip. My boss yelled a warning, attempting to push me out of the way as he jumped to safety but there was nowhere to go. I was pinned to the desk, and then under the cabinet.

At first, a complete loss of neck movement for near 6 months. Then slowly it returned but the natural curvature never would. From that point on, the muscles in the back of my neck were left solely responsible for trying to pull my head into a normal spot, while my revised spine desperately tries to keep my head down.

This month marks thirty years of pain, of reduced movement, of careful activity, of exercise to ward off migraines, 30 years of constant pain that leaves me cheering for every good day and dreading the worst.

Life can change in an instant. Things happens but what we do with it, what we allow it to do to us is up to us. I have found most of us live with some type of emotional or physical pain but the wisest do not let it define us.

I mean, when you think of me, do you ever think “Oh yeah, she’s the woman with the bad neck.”

The journey continues ….
 

I love you! HUGSSSSSSSSSS
Sandi

#ibelieveinyou #ibelieveinme #celebrateandsurvive #repairingfeathers