Setbacks can be incredibly frustrating. Everyone has experienced a setback of some sort in their lives. Sometimes it’s a lost job, or an unexpected financial burden. Sometimes it’s health related in the form of acute diagnoses. Whatever it may be we all know the crushing feeling when it happens and the slow trudge we have to take to make it to the other side.
For those with chronic illnesses setbacks can be particularly anxiety inducing. Let me give an example. Several years ago I was rear ended on my way to work one morning. The collision was fairly minor in terms of damage to my car but as the adrenaline started to wear off I found myself having increasing amounts of neck pain and headaches. I had about a week of severe pain followed by 6 weeks of moderate pain before I eventually went to physical therapy.
In physical therapy we worked on fixing my posture. It turns out I didn’t even know what good posture was supposed to look like. People would just say things like “straighten your back” as if your spine actually can be or should be straight. Also the advice “chin up” is utterly unhelpful as it puts your cervical spine at an arch. I did PT for months to strengthen my upper body and correct my posture. At the end of it I measured 1.5 inches taller than before. On the plus side, suddenly my BMI was within healthy ranges.
Unfortunately the PT didn’t solve the problem of pain in my neck. I spent the next 2 years or so trying various treatments, from osteopathic manipulation and acupuncture, to CBD oil and turmeric. Eventually I found a combination of treatments that keeps my neck pain in the mild range and doesn’t have any significant negative side effects.
Fast forward to my birthday this year. My husband and I went out for dairy free ice cream and we got rear ended by a drunk driver on our way there. The last time I was rear ended it took years before my pain became manageable so this is one of my biggest fears. As it turns out all that PT and posture correction did help me to absorb the impact of this collision with minimal consequences. I was stiff and sore for about a week and I had a migraine for 3 days but that was it (and I’m not sure the migraine was actually a result of the car accident).
It’s scary to face a setback like that. I didn’t know if I was in for several more years of moderate to severe pain, like last time. Or even if I was facing a new lifelong experience. Minor accidents can affect people in extreme ways, especially those of us with chronic conditions.
I’m thankful that my physical therapist worked so hard with me even when it wasn’t yielding the pain reducing results we wanted. I’m thankful that the drunk lady was arrested after a minor fender bender rather than her driving away and hurting someone else much worse. I’m thankful that this turned out to be a very minor setback for me personally.
To an outsider looking in my fears would look like an overreaction. After all the accident was minor right? But my fear was, I believe, justified. My experiences have taught me that a minor accident can have long lasting effects. Try to be kind to people around you when they seem to be overreacting about something you think is minor. It could be a huge setback for them in ways you can’t understand.
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