On Quitting vs. Folding vs. Something Else Entirely
If you’re reading this, it’s probably because I’ve decided to post it to twitter or facebook. To me, that means I can probably leave out a lot of the backstory. I don’t really need to tell you that, until a few months ago, I was at the gym every morning; I was finally running again after last summer’s sprain. The part you may be missing, unless you’ve caught a few tweets in recent weeks is that, in March, I started taking Accutane. If you’ve never heard of it, the Accutane brand was actually pulled from the market because of lawsuits and side effects: pain, suicidal depression, etc. It’s still available under different names. I use that name for ease of reference.
This is the part where the child in me says: “One two, skip a few, ninety-nine…ONE HUNDRED!”
And the adult says “fast forward to now.”
I’m sitting in the airport in San Jose. I have 14 days left in this course of medication. I limped from the house we stayed in to the car and from the car to the terminal. I took a seat in the waiting area and nearly screamed.
I wish this had been the first time it happened. It happens a lot. I feel bad more days than I feel good. I can’t run. I can hardly walk some days. Going to the gym is mostly out of the question. I am in near constant pain. I’m tired. I’m unfocused. I can’t stand for long periods. We’re about to get on a flight, which for some reason intensifies the pain. I’m sure science has something to say about this.
In 16 days, I never have to take this again. The problem is, I can stop taking it now if I want to. “Why is that a problem”? is, I’m sure, the thing you may be wondering. It’s certainly the thing I would be wondering if I weren’t me.
For starters, it feels an awful lot like dropping out of a race at mile 22 just because it’s hard when it got hard at mile 5. Or shutting a book I disliked from the first chapter at the second to last. I’m almost there. I’m almost done. And it’s been bad for a long time. I am full of “never give up” and it doesn’t always work to my advantage. I’ve missed deadlines. I’ve got ten days until another passes. Unless I really pull it together, it too will come and go.
My productivity has mostly stopped. If I accomplish three things in a day, it’s amazing, and getting out of bed counts for at least one. At least.
When I sat down in this seat and nearly lost my mind with the pain I was in, my boyfriend Mark looked immediately for a way to help me get comfortable. I called him close to me and whispered in his ear where it hurt most. A whisper is the best way to stifle a scream. He has been nothing less than amazing through this experience. I don’t know what I would have done without him, but to say that it hasn’t been hard on him as well would be incredibly selfish of me. It’s not only me that this affects. When I finally got somewhat comfortable, Mark said something about 16 days, or I can stop now. We joked about a sketch Bob Newhart did on Mad TV years ago; he told me “JUST STOP IT!!” I said something about not being a quitter. He said, “This may not be about quitting. This may be about knowing when to fold.”
He may be right. But this may not be about being right, either.
If I’m honest, part of me is terrified that the Accutane and the pain are nothing more than an unhappy coincidence. That this is not a side effect of that. I am afraid I will stop taking it, and the pain will not go away as the toxins leave my body. I am afraid that this is my life now - that my joints have somehow gone bad, life as I know it is over, and I won’t have pain free days, much less run another race.
I don’t know that this is about quitting, or about being right.
I think it may be about missing myself. I miss myself, and I am afraid the me I know might be gone. I still haven’t decided whether I’m going to stay the course or call it.
But I’d like to think I’ll decide by morning.
