Health Priorities: Dying to pay down debt

Hi everyone! The title is slightly dramatic but it speaks to a certain mindset I’ve been carrying for awhile. Today I’m going to write about being foiled by health. In my post Love and Money, I had a debt repayment plan for the credit card, the line of credit, and the store credit card. I was planning on using the extra money I was earning from my additional shifts at work to pay down our credit card $3000.00 and pay off the store credit card $1300.00 by August 2013.

No Room for Me or My Health

I wasn’t looking at the big picture when I made that plan, I wasn’t taking into consideration that I had a health problem that I had been ignoring. For the past six months, I’ve had some back trouble as a result of my super sedentary job. It’s been getting harder to do day to day stuff because it hurts. Sitting, standing, walking, not walking…it’s all been hard. Some days are great, some days are okay, but most days range from moderately uncomfortable to downright painful.

I’ve wanted to start being more active because I know that’s part of my health problem but I can’t because my back starts to stiffen up and I know what will come if I keep pushing. Nothing good, let me tell you. I’ve gone to a massage therapist a few times and it relaxes things enough that I can go on for a few days but then it starts to get gross again within a week. Months went before I thought about my health…but then everything came to a head – literally.

Last Monday, I woke up with a blinding headache. It was the kind of headache that left me scrambling for a bucket because I was nauseous from pain. I could tell it was from all my back trouble – I could feel it. Why am I painting this pretty picture? I’ll tell you.

I am an idiot. A. Really. Big. Certifiable. I-d-i-o-t. I have been so caught up these last few years last few months with trying to achieve something financially, that I pushed my health to the side to the point where I’m bent over a barf bowl and wishing I was dead. How dumb is that? Soooo very dumb.

I want so desperately to be done with debt, to have choices, and to enjoy life without this giant black cloud of MONEY TROUBLES hanging over me everywhere I go. Apparently, I’m so desperate, I’m willing to put this chronic back problem on the back burner and just continue on. The amazing thing is that I didn’t even realize I was doing it.

For months, I was going along and managing it as another unpleasant aspect of my life.  In fairness, the back pain did kind of creep up on me. It started out as maybe something I’d take Advil for once a month, then maybe twice a month, and then once a week. Now it’s gotten to the point where it’s almost weird if I don’t have Advil flowing through my system – I take it almost every two days.  I hear it’s bad for your kidneys. Good thing I have two of them.

My Health in Last Place

Why haven’t I really done anything about my health? Well, that’s an interesting question. And one that I don’t have a great answer for. To be honest, I think I got so used to feeling crappy all the time, I stopped questioning it. Whenever I did question it, I just pushed it to the side because I figured all solutions would cost hundreds of dollars and I didn’t want to spend that on myself. Always later, later, later. After all, who doesn’t get a stiff back once in a while?

So back to that Monday and I’m sitting on the floor with a barf bucket and a death wish. I decide, then and there, that this crap is not going to work for me anymore and I’m go figure it out and deal with it. I made an appointment with a physiotherapist that a staff member from work suggested.

My Health as a Priority

I had that appointment with the Physiotherapist tonight. She did her assessment and figured I had some alignment and muscle something-or-other and that I would have to come see her for about six weeks. My health plan will cover about half of it but this will take about $700.00 from my debt repayment plan over the next few months.

I’m frustrated, for sure. I hate that it will take me even longer to pay down the credit cards. In fact, I take that pretty personally. But when I think about what living with this back pain will mean over more days, weeks, and months, I can’t do it. I won’t do it. I’m not being fair to myself. If I put myself last, then I’m going to pay for that.

So, yes, we’ll have to figure out new numbers and new ways of making that debt pay-off thing happen. More importantly, I think I have to figure out a better way of managing this area of my life. I need to make space in my own life for me, not just debt – God, this sounds New Age and flakey.

This debt thing will not be solved overnight – I have at least another four or five years. I have to find a way to be okay with that time frame. I have no idea how I’m going be okay with all that but I think that by actually stopping to understand how this is affecting me in the moment is a good start.

Stupid self-awareness, why are you so hard to learn?

How about you? Have you ever gotten super tunnel-vision about something in your life?