Today I got confirmation of something I have been fearing for a few days since the pain began. By "confirmation" I mean "was told it was twice as bad as I feared.". The news I feared is that I have a hernia. The "twice as bad" part is that I have 2 hernias.
My initial reaction was not from a place of strength or resilience, I will admit. The reason is because I have a chronically ill wife and a toddler at home, so it is incredibly hard to fathom taking me out of commission right now. Our family can't afford for me to go down. Another reason for my poor reaction is that I had only recently found and started addressing the cause of my back pain, and will have to stop PT as it is aggravating the hernias. The final reason is that I love the way my workouts and the progress they help me make have made me feel, and they are going to have to be significantly cut back. I am - for the first time ever - really happy with how I look. It's a shame to think of losing that.
But, as I say, these are the wrong reactions and wrong things to focus on. It sounds trite, but I'm not dying and my problems are solvable. Those are HUGE facts. The drivers of my reactions are inconveniences I will have to solve for, but they, too, are solvable. And I have an alternative to keep my body in a good place by staying committed to eating smartly. And I can use my sauna during the free time I am creating by cutting back on my workouts. Oh, and I might get another 15 minutes of sleep per day (as a percentage, that's a big increase for me - you have no idea how good that sounds to me!).
It isn't all bad. It's unfortunate. That's it. As I tell my direct reports when we face a problem at work, our only real problem is that we don't have a fast forward button. We always solve things - it'a just a question of wishing we could skip ahead to the part where it's solved and we've moved on.
So, grab your TiVo remove, and hit the Skip button. Even your biggest problem really isn't your biggest problem.
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