If there is one thing my sister-in-law, Terri, has shown me time and again, it is her constant Never Give Up cheer in determining not to be beat down by the RSD/CRPS which has taken her from a 5foot 10inch pretty lady to something shy of 4 feet as her legs were taken when they became gangrenous after the onset of her DX years ago. Her life is now very much a product of coping with the benefit of a coctail of morphines and derivatives which are consumed in doses so highly prescribed now one would think them life threatening....
She wears a smile every time I am able to make it over to visit her as she speaks to me of painting cheery shirts for oncology patients in the local hospital whom she visits so as to take the dominance of pain in her life and turn it for help of others. This I share because she has asked me to share time and again in order that others who cannot understand the "Why" or "Why me" may be able to reach inside themselves for discovery of a means to be able to reach out to help others. She, I am sure, is why in my own pain scenario, I found my self resorting to reaching out in outreach to others because so much good and blessing is to be found in the sharing of myself with others.
I really get that you are living at or below the poverty line, a line well known to Terri, and also known to me when the horrific pain of car wreck injuries ripped career straight from my hands as though career was a thing onto which I could hold. I hope you may have at least Social Security Disabiltiy benefits which may help at the very least subsistence. I know this well, for it is what became both of Terri and me when we realized we could not earn money, and the benefits do help, while the Medicare part of the picture is helpful with the medical pieces.
Being in treatment, although Terri was not able to return to a self supporting career [she is both a chef and an artist] she turned her brushes to bringing smiles to other patients. Me? Well, after many many procedures, I finally had a semblance of Humpty Dumpty back together again so I could resume practice of my profession once more. I hope to be able to go off of SSDI soon because I will have proven to Social Security I can earn a wage again.
Others on these pages have gone on to finish school and take up teaching, or return to office work, things which could be done without a lot of aggravating physical challenges which would make the CRPS worse. I share thise thoughts with you so you may see there are possibilities out here and some may even be doable for you. Among the most positive things I have found in myself is an inward search for the blessings I do have in my life, for I found in recognizing those blessings, I could move myself beyond the fearsome place of depression in the grasp of which I found myself. Now my life is in part a daily recognition of blessings and stiving to help others find blessings in their lives as well.
I pray for you Elsie that life becomes light for you,
that needed means to sustain your living situation in a good way are discovered,
that through this place you find as I did, friends await to reach out and give you virtual hugs,
and that in all things you will ultimately find things to be well with you,
Mark56
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