The Sword of Damocles

When I woke up Sunday morning, everything hurt.  The FULF (Effed Up Left Foot,) of course, but sometimes it takes a while to wake up and remember that it's not supposed to hurt anymore.

But my hips were KILLING me, too.  They kept waking me up at night.  My acupuncturist thinks that after four years of limping, my hips moved into a new alignment.

I don't limp anymore.  (Much.)

My hips are getting the message and starting to move back into a normal position, I guess.

This turns out to be very painful and I may have to actually go see a doctor to find out if it's really THAT or if I was born with deformed hip bones, maybe some extra ones for good measure, and no one discovered it until now. (If it can happen with my FOOT, which had been x-rayed a bazillion times before anyone noticed the weirdness, it could also be the case with my hips.  Maybe there's a reason I had two c-sections. At this point, nothing would surprise me.)

My shoulder hurt.

My back was sore.

I constantly weigh what is normal pain, because (I know this is a shock) I'm not a twenty-something anymore and I'm trying to undo years of inactivity, versus what's abnormal pain that needs to be addressed by a professional.  There's this low-level anxiety that runs in the back of my mind with each new twinge.  I worry that pain is the new black for me.  That even if the foot somehow stops hurting, I will develop Fibromyalgia or some other deeply painful condition because that's just my new normal.

I really, really don't want that to be my new normal.

I want my new normal to be that feeling I get when I'm in the middle of a transcendent yoga practice, when it suddenly feels like I've...I'm just going to say this... swallowed light and it's radiating out of my fingertips and my smile.  I know how that sounds --no, I really do, which is why I'd only say it to you, trusting that you'll understand. The feeling is akin to a runner's high only with less heavy breathing-- a Yoga Calm (TM).

I thought about not going to yoga.  In fact, I went upstairs and woke my husband up and told him I was having a really bad pain day and that I didn't think I could go.

It's a pretty big thing for me to miss yoga so he was instantly awake, alert for anything he could do.  He was already rearranging his day in his head, just in case the bulk of it would be spent doing everything with the kids, pets and house while caring for me as I sat on the couch and tried not to move.

See, that's HIS new normal when I'm in pain.

I texted my friend Shirley to see if she was going.  (It's an 8:00 class on Sunday so we're not all as regular as we are to the other classes.)  She said she was.  I told her I was iffy, Pain Day...blah, blah, blah. Maybe I'd just meet her there and go easy. She said, "Okay. But don't feel bad about not going either.  Listen to your body."

I decided to go just for the breathing. I would just breathe along and move gently where I could without pain. I told my yoga instructor and he did that thing he does where it looked to me like he understood more than I was saying.  And then he said, "Just breathe through and do what you can.  Maybe as you go, you'll find things will loosen up."

Of course, that's what happened.

Because it turns out the all-over pain I was feeling?  It was from taking two yoga classes on Friday.  I was SORE.  Sore is very different from the grinding, all encompassing, soul sucking, relentless pain that kept me on the couch for the better part of three years.

Sore is actually kind of good.

Unless it triggers some sort of Post Traumatic Stress attack.

I guess I'm going to have to start seeing a therapist because I simply don't know how to live without pain anymore.  I'm constantly on high alert, waiting for the next attack.  It's stealing part of my LIFE, and y'all, pain has taken quite enough of my life already.

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Arbitrary New Year Update: You still have a few days to enter for a chance to give an entire vegetable garden to an impoverished family in a third-world country. Just leave a comment under that post (click on the blue (or red) words and it should take you right to it). Participation has been sparse, so your chances are good. (I know, I know, it's not as much fun to give a virtual garden away as it would be to, say, have a chance at winning a car or a trip or something, but the KARMIC payoff is MUCH LARGER. (If you can talk about payoff in the same sentence as the word Karma.) (Which is probably really wrong.) (I'm totally going to hell, aren't I?)