Tag: physical therapy

adventures in quarantine, Uncategorized

The courage I know.

tec

Yesterday was so amazing. And today is hard.

PT this morning was good. Bittersweet. I don’t have any more scheduled appointments with Eliott and I don’t know if I will or not. Gotta see what my doc says about next steps with my arm marbles. But he gave me a bunch more stretches to do and this amazing book of myofascial stretches. I’m so grateful.

And then I had to bring my Mouse to the vet to be put down. That one is hard. His tumor got so big. It was bigger than his head and he hated it and scratched at it and the poor thing. But also he was still so active and I feel terrible that I had to end the active part to be able to end the painful part.

So then when I got home I kinda threw future/ideal me out the window and cut myself a break. And didn’t fuel my body the way I would on other days. These things happen. I ate a few potato chips with homemade frosting and moved on.

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Tell me I’m fine.

tec

This morning is rough.

I’m consciously staying in mindset mode, but it’s challenging.

I woke up so sore today. My arm and shoulder hurt so much. And I knew that constant ache had subsided, but with all the flu going on and all the e-learning and pandemic and self-isolation, it was just nice. And not necessarily a fore-front kind of awareness.

But today I woke up and couldn’t raise my blanket over myself with my left arm again and it all came flooding back to me. I remembered all those months–almost a year of them–of not having the use of my arm. Of being careful and guarded and in constant soreness. Always being reminded my body isn’t where it is supposed to be.

And then after ten months of physical therapy, they finally found a spot that trigger point release worked! And then I got the flu and my whole family got the flu and I couldn’t go to my therapy sessions and didn’t do my stretches. And that was all okay because suddenly I didn’t have the constant ache and I could function!

But I woke up this morning and I couldn’t pull my blanket over me. And I was overwhelmed by all the ways illness slowly steered me from all of my routines. I know I don’t have to stay overwhelmed. I know I can put overwhelm into action and turn the whole thing around.

Knowing it doesn’t make it easy.

I commit to my regular morning routine. I commit to my regular routine life. I’m going to put a podcast on and make sure that my ego-driven doubt and shame get drowned out. It’s not real. I’m going to make coffee and brush teeth and do the dishes. I’m going to take my daily medicines. I’m going to do a pass through of decluttering and disinfecting. I’m going to do my stretches.

Action bores suffocation.

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You’re only as loud as the noises you make.

tec

I had physical therapy today. I’ve been in physical therapy since May, for an injury in March. He said they’re going to take a new approach because I still don’t have full range of motion. They said I’m a conundrum because the symptoms I describe aren’t really in line with my injury.

In a regular, well adjusted person this might be translated exactly as they said it.

In my mind (the one that’s had a lot of progress, but will always have aspects of that never believed little girl) I could only hear, “Your pain isn’t real.”

I have to fight every instinct to un-translate that thought loop. I have to work unbelievably hard to remember I have value and I’m worth a full recovery. I have to claw my way to a halt after cascading toward nothingness.

I can’t turn off the thought. I couldn’t stop the thoughts, “Okay, but what’s the right description for the pain when I come in next time? What is the correct way my arm is supposed to feel? Tell me the magic words I’m supposed to say to describe the pain so that you’ll believe me and I can feel better. ”

I couldn’t stop those thoughts if I tried.

So I didn’t try.

I didn’t put energy toward it. I didn’t give them credence though. I can hear the thoughts, but I don’t have to listen to them.

It’s not easy.

It’s not easy getting my body to not react to the thoughts and take it as gospel. It’s not easy to remember that my truth supercedes someone else’s, even if they are the professional and “know better”. It’s not easy to navigate all of this when it’s been almost a year of pain.

I keep countering all the thoughts anyway though because no matter how not easy it is to counter them, it’s still possible.

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Dancing in the rumbling dark.

tec

No more distractions. Today I commit pen to paper (what I wouldn’t give for this to be handwritten and typed out) to talk about my weekly goals.

Week 3 (Nov 25): Mindful posture.

I had started listening to Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. It resounded so logically in my brain that I was immediately immersed in it. It really felt like it made all the world make sense. It made human beings make sense.

I only listened to the first few rules before the audiobook returned itself to the library app I was using, but so much has stayed with me. The most significant being posture. What physiological messages posture sends to our brain and our cells. What cultural messages our posture sends out to others. What psychological messages get sent to our mind. So fascinating!

And once I learned the biological anthropology of it all, I kinda just look at humans differently now. Myself especially. I want my body language to exude confidence even if my mind hasn’t caught up yet. So…mindful posture.

It used to be that I would sit and do something and I’d be all hunched over and my spine would be a giant C and I’d think, “Eh, whatever. It’s more comfortable than training my muscles to hold my body up properly.” Which is a terrible thing to think and yet, honestly, I did. Often. But that has all changed and now when I notice, I challenge my lazy thoughts and honor my body. Turns out my body really appreciates the improved blood flow and circulation and increased muscle strength and it pays off in dividends. Who knew? (Okay. Fine. Loooooots of people knew. But now I do too.)

Week 4 (Dec 2): Daily PT exercises.

I roll my eyes here a little. It seems so obviously that I’d already just do these because I’m in physical therapy and I want to feel better. But, being the stubborn human I can sometimes be, I really fight this part.

I want to have full range of motion. Of course. And also, goddamnit, I want to just have full range of motion without having to constantly work at it.

Told you there is an eyeroll.

So I fight it. But I put this goal in place to minimize the damage of my stubbornness.

I do not accomplish this goal daily. Full transparency. At the start it was often. In the middle there was possibly an entire week I didn’t do it at all. The past two weeks, I’ve been about…80%? I’ll freaking take 80% here, kids. Practice over perfection.

I’ve been paying a lot of attention recently to how my brain filters and decides things. I’ve come to see that for constructive success, I need to do the thing the moment I think of it. If my stretches cross my mind and I think, “I’ll do those later” or “I’ll do that in a bit,” it’s a no go. I won’t do it. I’ll forget. I’ll get distracted. So, just like I keep harping on my 12 year old, “Listen the first time,” turns out I should too.

So I have been and it’s made the difference. And it’s an interesting thing the brain does when you are often doing action at the onset of the thought. There is less inaction and less reaction. The procrastination and perfectionism and fears really just have nowhere to go if you are getting the things finished before all the things finish you.

Gonna go do these stretches now. More on the weekly goals later.