New Anxiety Unlocked

My entries have been sparse for 2025. At the beginning of the year, I felt inspired and encouraged to begin projects that I believed would raise my living environment from what I felt was a storage container, to an actual home.

At first life had purpose -upgrade/repair the house. A few months into it, I experienced pain almost beyond description. My left forearm began to hurt in a way I believed I had somehow broken something. Shortly after that began, the respective elbow followed suit. The pain was too intense to ignore -no pain relievers, creams, ice packs or heat pads did a thing to relieve the aches.

After a doctor’s visit, I found out what was wrong… and let me tell you, the term “tennis elbow” doesn’t do the experience justice. The discomfort was enough to shut my mind down and place me into constant survival mode. It took two hands to remove a carton of milk from the fridge. The most basic tasks were almost impossible using only my left arm.

If you have never developed tennis elbow, pray you never do. The pain crippled me completely. I was unable to function beyond basic life skills. Eventually, I received a shot directly into the area but it came with a warning. The drug was not meant to heal. It simply took the pain away -for up to 4 months. After that, I could get one more shot if necessary. Once the second one wore off, there could be no more. What they injected caused damage to tissue with continued use.

A few days later I was back to enjoying life again -with the understanding that I had to avoid stressing the arm. What felt like 6 months later, the pain switched back on overnight. It was just as intense as before the shot was given.

I tried once again to use everything I knew to relieve the pain -with the same results as before -no change. I returned to the doctor and received my 2nd shot. I also learned that it had only been 4 months since the initial injection. I was disheartened, but the doctor advised that they normally only last 3. The fact it lasted longer was a testament to how I had cared for it. He issued orders for physical therapy.

But now my right arm is showing the same signs as the left began with -only different. My left arm hurts when my wrist goes up and down. My right arm hurts when I rotate my forearm or attempt to lift something. The therapist confirmed they were different conditons, but from the same cause -my arms had been weakened from all the down time after the wreck. When I began using my arms again, they were not ready for any sort of work. Even the repetitive motions of painting were apparently too much.

Now both arms are my sources of constant pain which render me almost useless once again. The therapist provided exercises to help build them up without stressing anything. He advised I could see results in as early as a few weeks.

But once again, I am back in physical therapy twice a week -for 8 weeks.

I’m so tired of this. So exhausted of either hurting or resting. What the hell can I do if the simple act of painting a wall causes immeasurable pain?

A year ago I had no idea what to expect, but I can easily say that where I’m at never entered my mind. This past year has been a roller coaster -and it’s one I’m just about ready to get off.