The Pain and Sport

Over the last couple of weeks, I have had quite a few people asking ‘So what does it actually feel like?’ So I thought I would just explain it all here. So I have a constant underlying pain in my feet and my hands (imagine socks and gloves). The pain I have is a burning sensation. When I flare up I feel like as if acid is burning my skin, blood, bones and muscles in the feet and hands. I occasionally get the same burning in my face but that is the only place where you can actually see something is wrong, my cheeks go bright red. In my muscles it feels like they are tearing. I have had a constant underlying tearing in my calves but when they flare up, it is so painful. Occasionally, the flare ups make my calves so tight and painful it is hard to walk and I find myself tripping because I can’t move my legs properly. I also get the tearing sensation in my forearms. The thing that annoys me most is I don’t know where the sensations are going to hit next. I occasionally get tearing in my quads. Also in my bicep region I am really tender. If someone was to touch me or knock me, it is so painful. Although it is a lot to deal with I have actually accepted that I can’t change it. It would be amazing if all of this stopped but I have accepted that there isn’t much more to do.

Before I started to get pain, sport was my life; every single day I had sport - sometimes multiple sports meaning I wouldn’t get home till late so when I was forced to quit because of the pain a couple of years ago I was lost. Since I was little, I always had something to get all my frustrations out, to run around and get rid of all my energy but I didn’t have that outlet. That’s when I started watching my cousin Lachie play basketball. When I think of basketball I think of little kids running around attempting to put a ball in the hoop. The level Lachie plays in is nothing like that.

For me I used to joke that I lived vicariously though his sport, in the end it is now my kind of my outlet. I cheer for him, and watch him do well, at the same time thinking that could have been me with netball.

I have since gone back to playing a quarter of netball once a week. I am not quite where I want to be, that being a full game each week but I am working my way back to it.

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