Sloth = pain

I haven't written in a month. I started this whole, "Im a writer" thing more than 6 six weeks ago and for two weeks, I did pretty well, posting here almost as much as I did when I was living in Finland, and writing a lot more in my fancy new notebook. Why did I stop? Well there are lots of reasons, all of which I tried to use to justify not writing but finally tonight I could not escape the conflict those justifications caused. I want to write and I want to express myself - if for nothing else than to have something to documented speeding through life, my memory won't last forever ya know? And what the use for all of these fantastic experiences if I don't remember them 20 yrs down the road? So let us continue shall we.

Today, I saw the beginning of the end of all my back pain! After two stints of physical therapy, a round of neurological tests (not fun, let me tell, especially since nothing conclusive resulted from it), doctors who thought the pain came from the tightness of my clothes (they're not that tight!), I finally, finally found a doctor who could tell me where my pain was coming from. Even better, she knew how to treat it. And it wasn't more pt!

My doctor, all her patients call her Dr. Jo, is a naturalpath - in other words, a MD that uses holistic practices/medicines. Naturalpaths are big in Seattle and a lot of my co-workers go to see Dr. Jo. Within five minutes, Dr. Jo had figured me out. She told me that when I was younger, I tore a tendon near my pelvic bone (probably when I fell on my butt all those times while rollarblading - you are always right Mom!) but because I was in great shape and exercising through childhood and high school, I did not know I had injured myself until I started to slow down. In other words, when I got to college, and more specifically, when all I did was eat, sleep, study, and drink, I lost my tone. The habits of a sloth do not mix well with a previous undiagnosed injury from childhood.

The pain was random and short lived at first, but by the end of my 1st year at Fountain House, I was in constant pain. The long and short of it is, that during the next four years the pain mutated and became harder to ignore. I started having these really weird sensations in my legs that would not go away. I went to see a neurologist who subjected me to all kinds of uncomfortable and painful tests to see if these sensations were connected to nerve issues. When Rick and I left NYC, I thought that my back problems were a symptom of my high stress levels. There was even a part of me that hoped that they were a figment of my over stressed over tired imagination. Well it didn't go away. Dr. Jo told me it was real, and even more vindicating to me (it wasn't all in my head!) was that other people have had the exact same symptoms as I do!

And so, I found myself this afternoon having large needles (by Rick's account) filled with a solution of irritant stuck deep deep down into the very center of all the trouble. The irritants are supposed to cause the damaged ligament to wake up and heal themselves. Right now, I just feel stiff. On the road to a full actual recovery, but stiff! I will take what I can get, no doubt...