This week it has really hit me how much this stupid disease has changed me. In the middle of the week I was at the grocery store with my husband and we used the self checkout. One of our items had a coupon on it, and the computer said to give it to the attendant. I turned around, she was about 15 feet ahead of me. To my right and a little ahead across from me was another girl checking out, stepping side to side to put things in her bags and to my left coming straight up to go between the self-checkouts instead of coming into the store normally was a customer pushing a cart. My CRPS is pretty much my entire left side now, and I quickly took a step backwards and waited for him to pass before taking the coupon over to the girl waiting. When I turned around and came back my husband who didn't understand what had just happened said that he didn't understand why I was confused by the process. I completely lost it, right there in the store, and broke down in tears. I wasn't confused, I was scared out of my mind that someone would bump me or hit me with their cart. Then my husband who is generally amazing and supportive felt like a jerk, and I felt worse for crying about it and making him feel bad. Which just made me cry more.

Then I had to deal with today. For a long time, while it was still just my leg I continued to go to church. Even though I had a lot of pain from sitting, I could adjust how I sat and be there at least for a little while. Now though, with it in my arm and shoulder too I'm back to the fear thing and stopped going. It isn't that there are so many people and I'd have to navigate that without bumps, although that scares me some. It's that church people touch. I realized this week though that I had filled up all our tithing envelopes and needed to give them to someone and pick up more so I had to take them in. I stopped in after church and talked to a few people, carefully staying on the edges of the crowd by a wall I could keep to my side. I had to stop someone from touching me. I need to talk to someone about something, and a gentleman offered to help me find him but I simply told him that I can't be there navigating through that crowd of people. I probably looked like a deer in headlights.

The worst of it is, if it weren't for the fact that people can't help the obsession with touching other people on the arm, I could totally go for a little while every week. I went to comic con in April of this year. Yes, I suffered greatly from the day of activity, but was able to navigate the crowds because it was spread out and people don't go around trying to touch other people there. It also makes me sad to think about having lost something that is so important to me because of fear and pain. Most days I deal with this like a grown up. I put on a brave face, smile through the pain so others don't have to suffer with me and try to live as normally as I can. Some days though, like today, it just hits hard and it's just too difficult to keep the mask on. Sometimes, I just need to throw a good tantrum about how none of this is fair to be able to keep going for a few more months... until the next time something breaks through and I need to have another.