Confession of Lemon

You know the phrase "when life gives you lemons make lemonade", well I am not sure if that applies in this situation. 

I am the lemon, or to be more specific my body is a lemon. No, I don't mean the yellow fruit that makes great pies and refreshing drinks.  I mean it like the crappy used car you bought with cash, but you are constantly having the check engine light come on, or you are constantly breaking down.  That is the kind of lemon my body is. 

It was not always that way.  I know, what those who are reading who know me in real life are thinking... "Just wait until you turn 40 then you will know what falling apart feels like."  When people say this to me I cringe for many reasons, but mostly it makes me hide even more. 

You see, there are days when I wake up and I can't walk, or can't use an arm or nights where I don't sleep at all because there is not position of comfort.  My body has decided that I am its own enemy.  That parts of me don't belong and should thus be treated like an invader. 

Most of the time, I can control my immune system from going nuts through medicine, diet, exercises plain old begging and willing it to work.  But, every once and a while I loose and it wins.  Usually it is a big storm that rolls in, where I have absolutely no control and thus I become trapped in a body that had decided to destroy itself. 

Yesterday my left shoulder and arm was useless or perhaps worse than useless because it was excruciating.  I don't bother saying anything to my students fellow workers, and not too much to my family.  Why complain. It is not their fault, they can't fix it, and worse when people put in their two cents it is usually based on pretty faulty outdated information.  Not to mention that today, my left arm is fine, but my right elbow, wrist and hand are...useless, swollen, curled and in pain.  Talk about trying to explain that one in a casual "What happened to your arm"

My response it typically "I am a lemon" and then I offer nothing else.  How do you say in polite conversation, "I have a degenerative auto-immune disorder that is destroying a joint that it thinks is injured, but it is no, so it is causing an injury which it will then go in a fix."  Not such great lunch table conversation. 

Now, there is some lemonade to go with this burden of lemons.  For those who knew me in the younger years, I took a lot of physical risk.  I had big dreams of where my life was heading.  I feel like these lemons are constantly steering me, serving as a ruttier.  Many roads I have taken in life I would not have taken, and most of them have been pretty sweet.  So for now, don't shake my hand, or ask what I did to myself, but just know that I am apparently being shoved onto a different road.  Maybe when I get on the right one, (or the storm passes) I will be back to functioning like always. Untill then have a glass of lemonade for me.