Turning point Tuesday

For the first time in a long time I actually feel optimistic about recovering from my injury that I sustained, nearly a decade ago.

I’ve done everything to try and get better. When I first got injured I went to doctors appointments, physio appointments, chiropractor appointments. Whatever, you name it as part of a recovery program, I’ve probably tried it.

None of them went anywhere. All these “solutions” lead to another dead end, no answers and just more pain. After a while you start to lose hope that you’ll ever feel better. You try to go on, but being in constant, unrelenting pain, well. That makes it very difficult to focus on much else.

I’ve been going to the doctor for many years regarding this problem, and it got to the point near the end of last year where he’d basically given up hope of finding anyone that could help and suggested I try morphine... Yep, morphine.

This was somewhat of a drastic step I thought and I took a hard pass opting to try my luck why Tylenol , Advil, and whatever health food alternative I could try. None of them really worked, but they helped a little...I started taking all of these things like they were frickin M&M’s. This was not something I wanted to continue doing for any length of time. I needed to find a solution.

One night when the pain got so bad I was essentially in fucking tears, I headed to the emergency room to see if there was anything they might be able to do, because I was just out of options and looking for something. What I found was morphine...

That’s all he was able to suggest. That’s all he was able to do.

He had asked if I had wanted to get a prescription for morphine instead of him just giving me three pills, because of the longevity of this issue. But he, like me is weary of this drug. Even though it’s meant for good, it can become something terrible.

Having only had morphine once before when I tore a ligament in my knee, I didn’t really recall what the feeling was like. But after the first pill, I could see how people could become hooked. I woke up the nest day thinking, “Shit, sure would be nice to feel basically pain free and take that morphine and a couple Tylenol again, sure felt good last night.” That thought scared me.

I didn’t want to become dependant on medication to alleviate my pain. I wanted to find a solution.

And I think I finally did.

For the past three weeks I’ve been attending a gym and having sessions with a coach who designs my workouts for me. He himself used to suffer with pain, but got through it with time and perseverance.

The first few days I was somewhat, sceptical. I’ve done this before, gone to the gym, went swimming. Hell for the past year I’ve been doing over 200 crunches a night. That’s way more than 3, when I started three years ago. But none of that seemed to help, in fact it seemed to make it worse.

Then I met this trainer who had me do what I thought we be simple tasks with my left arm cause I could easily do them with my right, but that wasn’t the case at all.

Raising my left arm in front of me and trying to move my arm to the side sent a pain through my shoulder and arm I didn’t think possible from barely moving. But it was, it is.

Given more simple tasks like this I realized just how bad this had become... The trainer told me as much. That I’d built up such a pain tolerance that my body was doing everything it could to not activate those muscles and hurt myself, but this self “defence” actually ended up creating a much bigger problem.

One that I’ve been working on fixing for so long I didn’t actually think it was possible anymore, but for the first time in forever I’m feeling hopeful that I can become strong again. That I can be fixed, and that my pain can be abolished.

This really is a turning point for me.

So far this years been pretty decent. 2018 ended on kind of a sour note for me for more than one reason, and I’m really happy that things are starting to look like they could turn around here this year. I’m really hopeful that this workout routine will get me back in tip top shape. I told you 2019, you’re going to be my bitch :P

Happy Tuesday Everyone Hope your new year is looking as hopeful as mine is. Here’s a few pictures I’ve been working on/ finished. Hope you like them. Enjoy the rest of your week, and I’ll see you soon.

Sincerely, Bret Frick