\u201cThank You.\u201d Why is that so hard to say? Why is a compliment so hard to accept? I have never been great at taking a compliment, but since my surgeries, I am even less able to simply say, \u201cThank you.\u201d I have difficulty taking credit for my accomplishments and yet find it astonishingly easy to beat myself for my perceived failures. No more.<\/p>\n
Since my second surgery, I have lost 149 pounds. With a bionic back, I have dropped 20 clothing sizes, eliminated my high cholesterol and hypertension, lost almost 50% of my weight and more than 40% of my body fat. Yet, ironically, when I weigh-in each week, rather than look at the incredible accomplishment I have achieved, I concentrate on the weeks when I do not lose, or the fact that my underarms still have some jiggle to them. When complimented on my weight loss, I downplay my accomplishment, offering explanations along with a healthy dose of self-deprecation. No more. The next time I am complimented on my weight loss, or told I look good, I shall say, \u201cThank you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Since having a multi-level spinal fusion in February 2012, I went from hardly being able to take ten steps, to Zumba and kickboxing 5 times a week, lifting weights and, in general, being in kick-butt shape. Friends and family tell me: \u201cyou look like nothing happened to you, like you are healed.\u201d Rather than focus on the leaps and bounds I have made in physical therapy, I concentrate on the days when I cannot get out of bed, when I can\u2019t get to a workout because of pain. No more. I fought tooth and nail to get myself back into shape. I do 7-8 hours of physical therapy a week. I walked out of the wheelchair and I did it one step at a time. The next time I am complimented on my recovery, I shall say, \u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n I have fought with mood swings and depression since I was a teenager. This past \u00a0half \u00a0year has been he!l on my emotions going through a divorce, cutting back on pain medication. I could have succumbed to depression and truly given up, but I fight, every day, to keep my sanity and to not give in to the loud voice in my head that tells me that I should give up, stay in bed, cry all day. I have been told, many times, \u201cI don\u2019t know how you do it. I would never get out of bed.\u201d But, rather than focusing on the depression and the mood swings that I do control, I focus on the days when I can\u2019t control it. I focus on those days when my moods get the best of me and I cry, or yell, or give in. I forget that out of 30 days, I got through 28 of them without breaking down and I beat myself up about the day that I lost control. No more. I work very hard to control my emotions. I fight against the depression as best I can, as often as I can. The next time I am complimented on ability to fend off depression, I shall say \u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n Every day is a battle in the war against life with chronic pain. Rather than focus on the wins, I concentrate on the losses. No more. I will try to take credit for the war that I am winning, not the battles I have lost and when I am complimented on my accomplishments, I shall say \u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n Image courtesy of my personal website and is copyrighted to the author.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThank You.\u201d Why is that so hard to say? Why is a compliment so hard to accept? I have never been great at taking a compliment, but since my surgeries, I am even less able to simply say, \u201cThank you.\u201d I have difficulty taking credit for my accomplishments and yet find it astonishingly easy to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pain-care","tag-dbtag"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101,"href":"http:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions\/101"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/painvalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}