With age comes wisdom or something

"PushPushPush!" the
water class instructor
shouted, and I

                                         am finally learning, so I

didn't.

Charles Baxter once said the world could use more tenderness

I could go in stomping and snorting and pushing myself past my so-lowered limits again, but that doesn't work.  It didn't work last week.  It won't work this week.  This is a task that calls for delicacy, sensitivity, tender care of self, and concentrated attention, and I am not very good at those things, especially right now.  I remind myself that I love a challenge (in theory) and that I can't just keep galloping full-speed ahead as I have been because that didn't work, isn't working, won't likely ever work again.  Patient and tender attention to me and the now immediately around me: this is what I need.  Harder than self-destruction in small doses any day.

what we learned (from the EMG)

It is perhaps not surprising that when one runs electric current through nerves that are working just fine, thank you, (and sometimes overtime) said nerves twitch and transmit more pain signals for days.  (Yes, that's my excuse for nearly a week's absence of posting.)  By now, the purple marker dots where the nerves run have faded, but the bruises are still here.

So more physical therapy ahead if this new, aggressive doctor can convince OWCP that his new diagnosis is related to the original injury all those years ago.  I wish him good luck in his quest, and I really hope he has better luck than any before him.  If he does, maybe I can think that the reason why my ideal job fell through so devastatingly is because I need to be here working with this doctor because maybe he can help heal me as no one else has been able to so far. 

I seem to look for meaning in everything that happens to me once I get over the initial knee-jerk reaction, but I have such a short attention span, I usually forget before I can be disappointed if my wished for meaning doesn't come.

In other news, it's summer, and the sun came out today, so I lay outside and basked and read a book and forgot my watch, and it was a really good book, so pardon me while I go get some more aloe . . .

Why I like my physical therapist

The physical therapist looked back at the last two months of therapy and then said, apologetically, "If it were anyone else, after two months of therapy, most people would be at close to 100%.  But, since you're you, I'd give it another 8 months or so."

I looked at him mournfully and said, "You're supposed to say, 'Since you're special', not 'since you're you.'"

He laughed.  He's a good audience, as I have mentioned before.  It's not that he's unsympathetic; it's just that he's limped down this long road before.  Last time, he eventually gave up, but I kept doing his exercises, and, after 3 times the amount of time it would take for a normal human to be over a flareup of plantar fasciitis, I wasn't limping all the time.  From the PF, anyway.

There is something to be said about working with a therapist who knows how screwed up my body is right now: it's very nice.  "Your body just doesn't know how to fix itself right now," he said.  There is no frustration on his part with how slow my progress is even though I'm doing the ^*#&ing exercises.  (That means I don't have to sense his frustration and get more desperate or wonder if he believes me about doing the ^*#&ing exercises.)

Why I like my physical therapist:

• No false sympathy.  When I first started, he told me to do as many of this particular exercise as I could before the pain made me stop.  I think I did 4.  I asked him how many I should be able to do, and he said, "Normally, people can do 30 at a time.  2 sets of 30.  I can see why you have a problem tossing beanbags with that hip.  It's kind of pathetic."  Ahhhhh, refreshing.  I also can't lawn bowl, but at least I was smart enough not to try after the Bean Bag Incident.
• No false projections of how fast I should be able to do these things.  What he said after the first visit.  "I think you can get back to close to 100%.  It's going to take a long time, but you'll get better."  When I asked him his definition of a long time, he said without hesitating, "10 months."  What he said about the newest exercise: "2 sets of 20 is a goal.  That you should reach for."  ("Not that you should die for" was implied.)  I can sometimes do 30 of the first exercise; sometimes I can only do 12.  After 2 months.  Seriously.
• Real concern.  Since he knows this is my life, sees how exhausted I am, and has heard what I'm up against, he does what he can.  Last time, he tried to understand the neurological chronic pain thing because he wanted so much for there to be something that could be done.  (He may also have just agreed that I am a menace behind the wheel when I haven't had any sleep and hoped there was an alternative.)
• Not worrying about depression.  It's nice to have one health care professional (or just one adult, really) in my life who isn't waiting for me to get depressed.  Or maybe worried about me getting depressed would be a better way to phrase it.  I mean, not that I blame the others; there are plenty of reasons for me to get depressed.  I just don't have time.  My PT is a man who understands pain and gallows humor and doesn't get all Concerned. 
• I can almost always make him laugh.  The power.  I really need to not do that when he's twisting me into pretzel shapes to get my hips back into alignment.  He could break me one of these times, and I'd feel bad if I made him do that . . .

"You're kind of a mess," he said.  "When some things are too tight, some are too loose, some are too strong, and others are too weak, it's just a big mess.  But we will sort everything out.  Eventually."

I believe him.

On to the next strategy . . .

I had fallen into a sort of cycle of pain, more of a spiral, like the one water makes as it's draining.  I'm trying to break it, so I'm doing things a little differently this time. 

I'm near the bottom of the cycle, so that means almost constant pain, but it usually results in my starting to favor my left arm even more, which results in more pain to my right arm and back, etc.  This time, I'm not babying the left arm.  I'm forcing it to remain on the steering wheel or the handle of the grocery cart when I would usually let it hang.

The result is not the miraculous one I was dreaming about.  I'm still in pain, and I'm still unconsciously favoring it (I can tell because the tendons in my right arm are outlined in fire, and I keep thinking someone's stabbing me in the back [wouldn't be a total shock at my RetailEstablishment]).

Maybe I'll treat it "normally" for another couple of days, but I'm not sure if I can.  Strike that idea from the list.


Anyone have any suggestions for strategies of how to outsmart my neurological problems?

Why I don't go to a chiropractor

Because it might work, and I might feel better.  And then I wouldn't be able to afford it.

How I spent my summer vacation

That's a lie, since I work full time, but I was thinking about my plans for my day off and laughingly titling it after that elementary school cliche essay.

On my day off, I will

• go to physical therapy
• go to my local HUD office to see if I qualify for assistance with my rent under Title 8
• go to the art museum because it's hosting some pre-Raphaelite goodness
• go see a movie with the gift cards my parents gave me when they visited for my graduation

I seriously never thought this would be what my summer would be like once I had my degree . . .

The Grudge: Part XVIII

I don't like to hold grudges, but apparently my body does. My physical therapist tells me there's no reason why I should still be having this much trouble with my plantar fasciitis.

"You're young!" he says as he tries the last thing he can think of before sending me to consult with a surgeon.

"It's great to be young!" I tell him as he "aggressively" treats my stubbornly stiff tendons. It's a good thing that I'm not involved in espionage because I wouldn't handle torture well.

"I'd hesitate a lot to send you to a surgeon," he tells me, "because you obviously don't heal very well."

This is true.

I imagine my powers of anti-healing have a lot to do with over six years of increasing sleeplessness caused by my friendly battle with chronic pain. My body is becoming more stiff and brittle, and it simply can't repair itself, causing me to consistently add to my growing collection of injuries. I would rather be collecting those last five state quarters I don't have.

After not seeing the physical therapist for several months due to financial issues, I returned in pretty much the same condition he'd last seen me in, which baffled him. "I mean, you're using the shoe inserts and stretching it all night with the brace and even doing the strengthening exercises. There's no reason why it should still be like this."

"Remember, with me, nothing can be easy!" I say, and he laughs.

When he told me he wanted to try really aggressive treatment for four weeks, he said apologetically, "You're not going to like coming here." We've been discussing other things he's said that we could use for our marketing materials for this treatment, such as, "This will hurt a lot" and "You're pretty much just coming here for pain."

I've never really been one for holding grudges. My mom was a master at it and my sister is, as well. I decided to take after my father. He doesn't really hold grudges because it's too easy to get distracted. Maybe I'm just lazy, but I can't maintain the energy it takes to remember being mad at someone for more than a few minutes at a time. My forgetfulness used to drive my sister crazy. She couldn't understand how I could forget things so easily. I couldn't understand how she could hold onto them for so long.

With only one mostly-working arm (and one fully-unreliable arm), I thought I definitely didn't have what it took to hold onto things, but apparently my body remembers. I am one stubborn, contradictory, ornery being.

Now, off to the next overnight shift. When that's done, I'm heading to the PT place at 6:50am, so he can tape my foot up again. He's coming in early. Poor guy deserves combat pay; he's going to hurt his fingers trying to defeat my grudge one of these days.