Fighting through pain

Three months after I was given my official diagnosis, I got my first lesson in what happens if you don't give your body rest.

I had a busy weekend ahead. I was moving from a small apartment to a nice, roomy townhouse and then I was leaving on a backpacking trip in the mountains with some friends. I have a hard time asking for help and since I had to get everything moved out before Saturday morning, I knew I couldn't ask anyone to take off work to help me move. At the time, I didn't have a lot of stuff anyway so I didn't think it would be that hard to do it by myself.

After hours of moving stuff, I was exhausted. What was I thinking? How in the world am I going to go backpacking when I feel this tired and achy?

I got up anyway and headed for the mountains with my friends. I remember how much I loved being in this amazing place, it was so cold at one point it was snowing on us, but I still loved it. Everything went great until it was time to sleep. With all the walking we were doing, I had flares in my hip joints. When I move a lot, I don't notice the hip flares as much as if I have flares in my knee's or feet but when I am trying to go to sleep.... it's excruciating. There is no comfortable position when I have flares in my hips. Add an extremely hard ground and that means no sleep.

My body was done. It was time to go home and rest, which I did do but not until we got one more night in. I don't remember this night being as bad but I learned a valuable lesson that weekend. If I want to feel good, I have to give my body what it needs - rest.

Now I can tell when I have pushed it too hard and not slept enough.