Toepain, thanks for this great post!! So happy for you that you have improved and you are doing such a great job of taking good care of yourself. Well done. Everything you say is exactly right. It should be the mission of each of us.
Soccer? Wow. Impressive. I was an amateur tap dancer before CRPS struck, taking weekly lessons, occasionally performing on stage. I was doing it for the fun of it. It took many months before I could get my shoes back on. I had to get my mind past the pain, past the self-conscious feeling of not being any good anymore, sometimes I felt like an idiot for even trying to tap again. BUT, now its been 2 1/2 years and I dance when I feel up to it, sit it out when its not a good day for dancing. I have to remind myself not to make a big deal of sitting out and give myself lots of credit for when I CAN dance.
One of the hardest things is drawing that strength from within. I do not get it from those around me. People around me are too darned worried about their own discomfort they feel when they see how I have changed, so nobody says anything to me. I hate that part.