and, People, I’m celebrating.
Allow me to back up.
Ive been yammering for a while now about my random, spontaneous injury.
The same owie which caused me to pull out of this race & then yammer about piriformis syndrome.
A boo-boo I’ve no business having as it typically hits hardcorebadassrunners (Im not proud, but I was averaging about a mile a month when it hit).
Why I got it, and more importantly, *what* specifically it is still remains a mini-mystery.
I tennis ball rolled.
I clam-shelled.
I was in more pain than ever.
Not only couldnt I play with the Tornado, I wasnt sleeping and basically ambled through life thisclose to grumpy.
When I slept, sat, walked for too long, sneezed, coughed. All the time.
(How this amazing amazing woman does it I have no idea. none.)
This pain was so distracting I feel confident in saying if you met me at TypeAMom or Blissdom you did not meet the real me.
I was an exhausted, owie-distracted version of my misfit-self.
It all got to the point I tried things I might otherwise have mocked.
It took me months, but I checked out Airrosti.
While they were a bit baffled by my booboo tootoo, we tried some things and my pain is less.
Im foam rolling more aggressively, I’ve upgraded to a lacrosse ball, Im pigeon-posing, & Im planking like a motherfucker frequently.
All things I either didnt do enough of or not at all.
(which brings me in a rather circuitous way back to my blog post’s title)
One day this fall my super-supporter & friend Shauna asked how my back felt.
Without hesitation I answered:
It feels like Im wearing a low-slung belt of pain.
It hit me last night.
Suddenly.
As I was going through my regular routine.
I feel almost belt-free & as if Im getting my spark back.**
It was an odd realization.
Back when I had no pain (hello first 40 years of life!) I would have lamented the constant piriformis ache I felt last night.
Now, in comparison, it’s a very welcome achethrob.
I truly believe, in my quirky misfit’y way, there’s a reason behind my experience & it has been bestowed upon me to give me more empathy.
And indeed it has.
I’d thought I was empathic before—-and I was wrong.
All of you who wrestle with chronic pain on a daily basis?
I take my bandanna of to you and pray for your loose, around the waist scarf to come soon, too.
very soon.
xo
**Interestingly, when I made the ‘Ive got more spark!’ remark to my Airrosti doc he said he wasnt surprised. When we are in constant unrelenting pain so much of our energy is focused on THAT/keeping it at bay we do have less energy (AKA spark) for other things in our lives. I’d say “who knew?!” but Im sure many of you did.
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