Sunday, May 20, 2012

Give it up cause I'm BACK

I wish this pain would give it up already.
I had a couple good years. I don't mean to sound defeated and pessimistic, and I'm not saying that the surgery wasn't worth it, it def was. Without it, I'd still be walking with a cane, unable to stand up straight or hold up my upper body. I am having leg pain, throbbing pain, like a heartbeat, after activities that require lots of walking or standing on hard surfaces. Had to coat my legs in Tiger Balm last night and use my fists to pound some additional circulation into my muscles in order to relieve it somewhat. For some reason, I have in my mind that pain can only be relieved with something equally as violent, hence the fist pounding, and before you make an assumption of masochism or anything, I learned it from a yoga instructor (the fist pounding, not the weird idea about pain relief). This was after a day of running errands and doing an hour yoga class in the morning, not exactly running a marathon. Incidentally, I'm wondering out loud here why the hell I need to cram all my errands into Saturday when I'm unemployed and can go to the post office and CVS and Bed Bath and Beyond during the week? W/E.
I also have sciatica pretty bad again, and I when I say pretty bad I mean moving a certain way which I might add, is still completely unpredictable, gets me a lightning bolt of pain down my leg, like a filament of an old light bulb, white hot and quivering.
The other large issue now is my neck. A few weeks ago I had xrays and an MRI. I'm now able to read xrays and MRI films pretty well, and I was shocked, as I was 20+ years ago when I saw my thoracic spine twisted like a vine around a tree in that set of xrays, to see my C5 disc completely collapsed. The physiatrist I saw was a joke, writing a script for muscle relaxers I can't take for obvious reasons and NSAIDS that I can't take because of stomach problems. Dr. Spivak, who was recommended to me by Dr. Balderston, says he can go in and TRY to fit in an artificial disc, but, like the sitch with my lumbar spine 5 years ago, it's collapsed and he probably won't be able to pry it apart to fit the disc in. Aside from that, I have bone spurs and arthritis in there and he says he can clean it up and I may get some relief.
I need relief. My left arm and shoulder kill me a lot, and I can't depend on the left side for anything (which makes chaturanga dandasana a challenge and sometimes a comedy routine and sometimes just a balasana (child's pose) until I'm able to use it again.
But I keep going. I keep doing yoga, I keep hiking, I keep trying to lift stuff with my left arm, cause if I don't that'll mean I give up and I don't.

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