In case you haven’t watched any news or heard us bitching on Twitter, Los Angeles (like most of California), has been under a lot of water this week. We even had a few tornadoes yesterday with more predicted tomorrow. To be honest with you, aside from the traffic that is caused by the rain (the road is WET not covered in LAVA Los Angeles), I don’t care much. As long as we stay safe, I can deal with the wetness.

Well, I could.

But with the rain has come snow. And with the snow has come trouble. There is a mountain pass between where my family lives and where I live. That pass was shut down today because of snow and with tomorrow’s predicted storms, will be again. This pass was the route my mom as going to travel tomorrow to stay the night and take me to Friday’s lumbar puncture (attempt #2) because Slappy has to work.

This is not a possibility any longer.

Even if the pass is open, it’s not going to be safe to drive, and I am unwilling to be so selfish that I put my mom in danger. It’s just not an option.

My mom called my aunt and she’s going to take me on Friday, which I greatly appreciate. And then I think I’m staying at my sister’s house on Saturday night because Slappy is on call overnight at the hospital and I’m uncomfortable being left alone.

Ultimately, it’s all going to work out because by and large, my family is incredible. I will have people taking care of me and I will be safe, but it’s hard to deal with this. I feel like such an incredible burden to my family and friends. I feel like now not only does my husband feel bad for not being able to take care of me, but my mom does too. My sister took off an entire day of work last week and now is giving up part of her weekend to babysit me.

Where does it end? I’m 26 years old and I am completely dependent on other people. I appreciate those other people so much, but I know that I am negatively effecting their lives and it breaks my heart to pieces.

My friends can go a week without someone taking care of them, their parents can live thousands of miles away and they’re fine. My friends don’t have to arrange complicated family setups so that they can get safely to one appointment or the next, their parents don’t have to take days and weeks off of school to help them. My friends get to be independent, get to go to school regularly, get to stay on top of their work. They don’t have to call their husbands and mothers each day to say how the day really was. They don’t have to find ways to make things seem fine. My friends and their families get to be normal.

I try not to strive for normalcy too often because after a while, it gets to be too disheartening to never achieve it. But I don’t need normal in my life right now, I need normal for my family. I need for my mom to not cry and worry and pray for me around the clock. I need my sister to not feel guilty for not being able to help again this week, for not being able to help me find a solution to this pain. I need my husband to not feel bad about going to work, to a job where he saves lives. No one should feel guilty for that.

I have surrendered the hope of not having pain. I accept that this is my life, and though it sucks fiercely I can deal with that. I can deal with the changes that have come in my life, I can deal with the fact that my life might never be the way it was or the way it probably should be.

But I cannot accept what it has done to others.

I cannot accept the fact that it has changed so many people besides me. I cannot accept that this chronic pain has distorted and disrupted the lives of those I love. And though I want to be, I’m not optimistic about this test. I don’t think it’s going to be the answer, I don’t think it’s going to be the end of the pain.

But I think it might be the end. I think it might be where I wave the white flag and accept this reality. This is my fight. This is my life. And it’s mine to wage and mine to struggle through. And when the carnage of this battle bleeds into the lives of those I love, I have to draw the line.

I will not let this pain ruin others. I will not let this pain take more prisoners, more victims. It can have me, that should be enough.

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