Progressive diseases tend to progress

Seems obvious, right? Of course if I have two progressive diseases, it stands to reason that they’ll get worse. I guess I just didn’t think it would really happen to me and certainly not this soon.

My left arm has been hurting for about four months. In case you might ask (like my husband did) why I’ve let it go this long without seeing a doctor, well, I just thought it would go away on its own. I figured maybe I was just sleeping on it weird or something.

But it has gradually become clear that this is not going away on its own. It feels like I have a 20-pound weight constantly strapped to my left arm. It’s hard to even lift a coffee cup.

This is also not intermittent pain. It doesn’t respond at all to pain relievers and only somewhat to muscle relaxers. It’s pretty much constant.

I know this is a telltale symptom of Charcot-Marie-Tooth, one of the diseases I have. But still, I’m a bit overwhelmed by how suddenly it came on. I’m even more overwhelmed by the fact that this symptom will probably never go away.

I’m kinda ashamed of the fact that I was crying about it to my husband last night. I mean, he’s dealing with being on chemo, for god’s sake. Who am I to be crying about my sore arm?

At the same time, I feel so much worse than I did before. I really, really don’t want to be a whiner about it. I don’t have a lot of respect for people who constantly whine about their health problems. At some point, I think you just have to suck it up and accept that this is one of your challenges and learn how to get on with your life anyway.

I just didn’t know that it would hurt this much.