More than my diagnosis

Right now, I’m having a bit of an identity crisis. Despite absolutely loving being a pediatric physical therapist, I’m anxious about returning to work in a few weeks. I’m frustrated that I have all this time before I start work, and I can’t use it for aerial or other fast-paced workouts. I’ve always been the fastest walker in the city, and suddenly I’m barely keeping pace with the elderly walkers while I try to keep my heart rate from spiking.

For so long, I defined myself as a gymnast. When I lost gymnastics as a result of my injuries, I had to learn to redefine myself, but I never let go of that inner gymnast. I found music, I found writing, I found advocacy. At some point, my identity became intertwined with fitness, but it was fitness with an always-injured spin. 

When I discovered aerial, the gymnast that I had needed to cage inside for so long came back out. I felt free, I felt alive. I felt myself. 

Just a couple months after beginning aerial, I received my EDS diagnosis. It was not a huge change in identity, as I had always been known to be very hypermobile and to have a brace or ace bandage on some limb or other. However, I now had a name for it, and I could combine that aspect of my identity with my ever-present gymnast/aerialist. I didn’t have to be the injured gymnast anymore. I could be the aerialist overcoming my EDS limitations.

And now this. With my new diagnosis of two types of dysautonomia, it’s impossible not to feel that I have once again lost the piece of me that can soar above everything. Yes, it’s temporary. But in these next 6 months of retraining my nervous system, when I cannot allow my heart rate to spike, it’s hard to find anything that comes close to filling that flying gap.

I am trying to put on a brave face. When I tell people how happy and relieved I am to have a treatment plan, no matter the cost of losing aerial, I really do mean it. After years of feeling awful, to finally have knowledgeable doctors listening to me and helping me find solutions is a dream come true. 

 And in the meantime, I can play around with music again. I can return to writing. I can read plenty of books. I can let my slow walks take my legs to the local dog park, where I can feel the joy of the dogs running free. I can focus on healing my body after years of no direction on how to do so. 
And those are all just things I do. They’re subject to change any time. But who I really am? That doesn’t change with the changing labels and diagnoses piling up in my medical file. 

I am still caring and thoughtful. I’m clumsy and goofy and funny (at least I think I’m hilarious, whether or not the people around me agree). I still have great deduction skills that help both in the PT clinic and when reading mystery novels. I’m generally happy and I work hard to see the world through a positive lens. I love my husband, I love my family, I love my friends. I love singing and I love playing with puppies. I love when airplanes take off, and I love sunsets. I love the stars, and I love the ocean. I love avocados and I love cheese and I love ice cream. I love my life. 
Sometimes it’s hard to remember, but I am so much more than my medical conditions. 

Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 8, 2018 at 5:14 AM

    Hey there :) I read your article and instantly related. Reading the first part I wanted to tell you that you‘re so much more than the things you DO. You came to the same conclusion at the end of the text :D so there‘s nothing else left for me than writing: I feel you and I‘m trying to build up an inner picture of me, my identity, that doesn’t relate to things I can do (at the moment). I’m concentrating on the way I see the world and feel.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. BendNotBreakNovember 18, 2018 at 1:23 PM

      Thank you so much for your comment! That's really all we can do as humans traveling through this crazy life :D

      Delete

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