(Today’s Pain Log)

I’m writing this from the recliner that pretends to be a solution. It isn’t. It’s a truce. Ten, maybe twenty minutes of less-awful before everything starts screaming again. Nights are math problems I can’t solve: how many positions can a body try before it bargains with dawn?

Quick status for those following along:

• Right hamstring: tore completely (twice), surgically repaired (twice), failed (twice).
• Left hamstring: fraying, “hanging on by a thread.”
• Glutes: tearing.
• Lumbar spine: degenerating, with nerve pain that likes to cosplay as sciatica.
• Cervical spine: impingement doing its best impression of lightning.
• Left shoulder: traditional replacement earlier this year, now slipping into the same slow-motion collapse—rotator cuff/tendon degeneration, edema, weakness, impingement, and diminishing usefulness. A recent scan backed it up: damage even without new “use.” The next step would be surgery number 34—converting to a reverse (inverted) shoulder replacement.
• Hands and wrists: arthritis filing away my mobility one hour at a time.

If you’re new here, yes—this has a name. A rare form of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), the connective-tissue disorder where collagen and friends don’t hold up their end of the bargain. In my case, the genetics are weird even by EDS standards—a rare chimera-like, dominant-acting mutation that explains why repairs don’t stay repaired and why “rest and PT” sometimes feel like bailing out a ship with a pasta strainer. Multiple specialists have confirmed this diagnosis and linked it to the repeated tendon failures and progressive joint instability.

A surgeon who’s been in my hamstrings more than once put it plainly: despite doing everything right—restrictions, collagen augmentation, all of it—the tissue simply wouldn’t heal, and future revisions weren’t reasonable. That’s not a failure of will. That’s physics. That’s biology. That’s the blueprint refusing the remodel.

Imaging reads like poetry written by a sadist: complete re-tears, retraction measured in centimeters, edema in all the wrong places, fatty infiltration from disuse forced by pain. Each scan is a Polaroid of a vanishing shoreline.

What does that mean for daily life? Sitting is an argument. Standing is a negotiation. Walking is a short story with a twist ending. Sleep is a thought experiment about pain management; daytime is a countdown to the next attempted nap. I have tried mainstream medications and a few off the beaten path. They help until they don’t; they move the needle and then the needle moves back. (Yes, I’m working with my doctors. Yes, we’re still trying things. No, I don’t need miracle cures in the comments, but I always appreciate kindness and shared experience.)

I want to be honest without being hopeless. Honesty: I am in pain. A lot. Often. The shoulder news gutted me because it was supposed to be the “fixed” one. Hope: I am still here, still writing, still making something out of what hurts. The work is slower, stranger, and more deliberate. Sometimes I draft like I’m threading a needle in a thunderstorm. Sometimes I write one line and lie down. Sometimes the line is enough.

If you’re reading for the science: connective tissue is the unsung stagehand of the body. It holds every scene together so the stars can hit their marks. When the stagehands strike, the play doesn’t stop at once—it frays. Props wobble. Cues slip. Tendons don’t just fail during heroics; they fail during shoe-tying. Joints don’t just dislocate mid-marathon; they misbehave mid-yawn. EDS is a union of small betrayals.

If you’re reading for the human: I miss simple things. I miss ambling without planning exits. I miss picking up a grandchild without measuring the aftermath in ice packs. I miss sleep that isn’t a chess match. I miss, more than anything, the feeling of not calculating.

If you’re reading for the story: This is the story. It is not the whole of me, but it’s the weather system I write inside of. The books you’re waiting on—I’m writing them. They just take different routes now. The prose might carry more weather than it used to. Maybe that’s not all bad. Maybe the atmosphere has its own gifts.

Two asks:

1. If you know someone walking a similar path, share this. Not because I’m special—because being believed is medicine.
2. If you want to help, help me keep telling it. Subscribe, leave a note, or just keep showing up. Showing up matters.

And yes—because candor matters—bourbon sometimes keeps the wolves at the edge of the yard. I’m not proud of that, but I’m not ashamed either. On a bad night, two fingers are a chapel where I light a small candle and call it sleep.

Tomorrow, I’ll try again. Same body. New page.

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Notes for the curious: My care team’s written assessments link the EDS diagnosis to failed healing and progressive tendon/joint damage; recent imaging documents the complete hamstring re-tear with retraction and ongoing degenerative changes. I’m sharing that because transparency helps readers understand why “have you tried yoga?” lands the way it does.

Thank you for being here. Your presence is one of the few things that still feels weightless.