Went for my physical torture session with the physio this morning. My poor aching neck and back is so tight and sore before she even touches me, let alone after the pushing, probing, poking and prodding starts. It hurts, it really fuckin’ hurts… imagine your entire neck and back is covered in big ugly yellow and purple pizza bruises from being repeatedly beaten with sticks or something. Then further imagine that you’ve decided to pay a couple of particularly sadistic ten year olds to poke you all up and down your bruised back for an hour or so with their pointy little fingers……. Actually no. That sounds rather more pleasant than my average physio appointment….. sadly words seem to be escaping me and I’ve no suitable analogy, but I’ll definitely share should one ever come to mind.
Anyway, I’m usually there face down for the best part of an hour being poked and prodded and I’ve found in the past that the more i can put up with on the table the more mobility I’ll get later. So over the years I’ve learned not to squeal too much or they back off and therefore less benefit later. Basically this means that I get jabbed and manipulated in severely painful ways in an attempt to regain some range of movement in my neck which can be beneficial for such things as, oh … i don’t know.. so as to allow the ability to safely shoulder check on the drive home ?? (yeah – the drive there is always a bit of a crap shoot). Throughout this excruciatingly painful bi-weekly ritual I am effectively biting my tongue to try not to let on how much it hurts. The hardest thing about this…. is remembering to breathe.
That sounds so stupid – but it’s true. I have a tendency to hold my breath when the pain is really unbearable. It often happens first thing in the morning when I’m trying to get out of bed. I don’t know why but I seem to tense up all night (so much so that my thighs, calves, forearms and hands often feel tight and sore as though my entire body has been tense) The Valium helps with this a bit, but most days it’s pretty bad which means I sort of have to roll out of bed and I end up kinda bent over from the pain, steading myself on the furniture until I can get upright. This has been happening most mornings since the last accident and it’s been noted that I tend to hold my breath quite a lot throughout the ridiculously mundane but excessively difficult process of getting out of bed in the morning. 🙁
I also tend to do it if I have to bend down – say if I have to do something excessively difficult like… you know… tie one’s shoelaces or pick up something off the floor and many other acutely painful situations. :S And yes, I do it on the physio table all the time…. so my physio is constantly telling me to relax as she tries to mobilize my joints and she is frequently heard saying things like “Breathe Borys. Breathe.”
It just strikes me that one should not have to be reminded to breathe.
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