Life Is Like A Cha-Cha (2 Steps Forward, 1 Step Back)

Remind me the next time I want to verbally articulate that I might possibly be feeling better to just keep it to myself.

I am now ten days out from a pretty bad fall which I sustained in Mexico last week. The fall was 100% preventable and due to negligence, and unfortunately whatever legal recourse available to me would be so limited, it wouldn't be worth the time, sweat, tears, and money to pursue it.

There were several things for which I am thankful surrounding or involving the fall: 

1. That it happened in a controlled environment where I got immediate medical attention;
2. That the resort at a minimum (truly, the bare minimum they actually did for my physical welfare) was to provide me a wheel chair, of which I remained in the entire duration of my visit so at least I wasn't a prisoner in my hotel room;
3. That the injury wasn't more severe or catastrophic.

It happened before we even checked in at the resort, and it resulted in me neither going to the beach, pool, nor spa for my short stint. 

Fortunately for me, I have been in CBT since February and I am nearly done with an online psychology course, both of which have been instrumental in helping me not catastrophize what happened.

Unfortunately, I had a very long wait ahead of me before I'd know with any certainty the extent of my injuries. So there was that sense of dread that what little progress I was making would not just be dashed by this injury, but that it might have been more severe.

I was injured on 5/20, and we arrived back home on 5/23. The moment Uber dropped us off, we loaded our luggage in our car and we headed to urgent care to get an xray. Urgent care provided me a useless air cast and equally useless crutches, and a preliminary interpretation of the xrays of my ankle and my knee. No fractures in either, but some concern of a torn meniscus in the knee.

The next day I called P4.0 to see if she could fit me in, and sadly she works in NJ on Thursdays and Friday she was booked solid. She doesn't have office hours on the weekend, and Monday was Memorial Day. Tuesdays she's in NYC, so the earliest I could get in to see her was yesterday, 5/29, which was already prescheduled, as it was the date of my third and final series of shots in my knees.

She allayed any concerns regarding my achilles tendon and calf muscle, both of which I was concerned with a possible tear. 

I'm pretty fortunate that we travel so much. This wasn't a trip of a lifetime. Mexico is a manageable destination (as is Florida), so if I want to go, we'll go again. It was neither the first nor last time I'll visit either. 

Everyone that knew the Maharajah at the work conference remarked at how composed I was, despite the obvious physical pain and limitation of a wheel chair. And I recounted how lucky I was, regarding the circumstances. Also, what wasn't conveyed was, if your baseline of pain normally is a 4-5, to go from that to say a 7-8 (or even possibly a ten on day 1), makes the additional pain bearable. If I went from 0-1 daily to 7-8, I think psychologically I'd be worse off. So, as my therapist would say to me, my pain is actually serving me (and possibly making me more resilient). 

So my job is to stay the course, continue taking care of myself, and try to rally as much as possible, as the trip to Mexico was not a full vacation, but the intent was for me to rest up and physically prepare myself for another trip coming up. 

On a related note, I feel quite strongly that my new acupuncturist has helped me more in such a relatively short amount of time compared to the years of physical therapy and years of regular chiropractic care.

Onward and Upward

My blood pressure continues to maintain good numbers. Yesterday was 110/70. SWEET. Let's see if it will hold thereabouts when I see my kidney guy next month.

I am now up to my second round of injections in my knee, with the third to happen in 15 days.

I'm continuing to keep a tight schedule, all in the hopes of improving my mobility and pain issues--which reminds me, I need to call the orthotist to find out a status on my orthodics which were being revised.

Appointments in the mornings before work for injections or MRI or xrays, and appointments in the evenings after work for acupuncture (2 days a week, Monday and Friday), cognitive behavioral therapy, as well as physical therapy on Wednesdays and Saturdays with chiropractic on alternating Saturdays immediately following physical therapy. Dental stuff. Eye glasses. 

Then there's the issue of household stuff like groceries and pharmacy runs and laundry drop off/pick ups, and somehow getting all that done. But things are so precariously tight, that if I miss groceries or laundry, it can be problematic trying to find the time to do so. I've tried to get the household into a schedule of running the garbage to the dumpster before work on Mondays and Fridays, and laundry drop off/pick ups after work on Mondays and Fridays. I consider it a win if we manage to do this on a Sunday, which lessens our demands for time on Mondays at least.

While we were away three weeks ago, I saw an acupuncturist twice, and decided to get back into the swing of things with more regular acupuncture appointments. I managed to find a very capable and caring acupuncturist close to home and have been seeing her for the last 3 weeks or so, and have noticed a change in my hip bursitis as well as some improvement with my walking. Perhaps I can delay getting nerve ablation in my back. Only time will tell. But she's very helpful, and I see each session building on the work and benefits of the previous session. I even feel some sense of psychological benefit to the sessions too--even validation in some regards. 

She's such a good acupuncturist, even the Maharajah has decided to seek out treatment from her. And I've recommended her to at least one co-worker. 

Physical therapy is making me stronger but not improving my pain issues. And perhaps once I discontinue PT, whenever that might be, I'll consider joining the YWCA and start going there on Mon-Wed-Fri. Perhaps. 

I've also been taking an online psychology course which has been helpful. It's a 10 week course, and I am up to week 7, and from now until the end of the course, I have to try to entrench new neural pathways by establishing a new habit for me, in this case, improving my sleep.

So I'm chipping away at things, making some improvements, and trying to forgive myself by not achieving my goal faster, but to focus on making incremental progress. Last night I got six hours of sleep, so I just have to start tweaking what time I actually get to bed until I finally arrive at 7 hours of sleep a night.

I have to remind myself, I AM WORTH IT.