Herniated Disks, Michelle Vasquez

I want them to see the give and take. The give and take that everybody has to deal with when you live with chronic pain. You give up some things so you can take some other things. You forgo one thing so that you are able to do something else. It's a lot of picking and choosing of what is more important.

It would show that my my heart is, I don't know torn between doing the things that I really love to do and that I've always loved to do, and being able to try to live a quality of life where I'm able to get up and go to work every morning and go to the grocery store and not not have to take meds.

They can't see it like you break an arm. They can see you have a broken arm, but when your back is hurting you, they can't necessarily see the pain inside of your back. You just look like a regular person walking down the street. They might miss the grimace on your face and that is the hardest part because I don't think that people sympathize as much with pain that they can't see. You know, it's dismissed. It's too easily dismissed. Some people think it's you're trying to cause attention for yourself. Some people would say, you know you're a slacker or you don't have the energy or the drive to do something that you would want to do when really that has nothing to do with it.