Isn't it funny how, when you have total access to everything, you don't realize how great that is? Funny how you don't want to do something when you can, but the second you're told you can't you want it so badly?? That's my life right now.
I have a pretty nasty back injury, and have had it for about 5 weeks. For the first month or so, it came & went and I kind of self-prescribed no high impact exercise and kept telling myself it would get better. Heating pad, icy hot, hot tub, the stretching I could do, and some Ibuprofen would be all I needed! I determined I could walk & strength train and work on things that way. I walked only 2x a week for those 4 weeks, though, and strength trained a grand total of once- didn't exactly follow my own prescription (doctors ARE the worst patients... even non-medical docs)! So this week, after feeling pretty crappy about myself and having more and more negative body image thoughts, I said "Self! This is the week! You're going to follow your plan! Woo!" Monday night and the strength training class I had said I would do all month came up again, and this time I went. I was determined to focus on form and use light weights and thus all would be lovely.
To quote the infamous Ron White "I was WRONG- you ever been wrong? It happened to me."
I had light weights and perfect form all night, but guess what? Dead lifts when you have a back injury are just a bad idea. Monday night was rough, let's just say. Tuesday morning, though, was worse.
After a visit to Urgent Care, I was the proud "owner" of three new kinds of pills and a serious prescription from the doc: No weightlifting. No running. No treadmill. No elliptical. Walking outside only, with a "maybe" stamp on water aerobics- but no swimming.
I told y'all that story to tell y'all this- I plan to never again take movement for granted. The simplest things, such as rolling over in bed, are excruciating right now. Sitting down and standing up take a lot of work, and every time I do either I look like I must be pregnant. Leaning over the sink enough to spit toothpaste into the bowl is hurtful. Basically, every step of my day lets me know "don't take this for granted again." Because it could be gone any moment.
The other lesson I'm learning? Find a plethora of ways to feel good about yourself and have quality time with yourself. I feel sexiest after a good run. I can't do that right now. I haven't been doing it consistently for some time. Guess how I have not been feeling? The silver lining to this back injury (well, it's maybe a fuzzy gray lining) is that I'm being forced to find ways to feel better about my body without either 1) falling back on default or 2) blaming my lack of sexiness on lack of motivation and going for a one-time workout as a band-aid. Finding true ways to love and appreciate my body outside of exercise is a wonderful thing to do, and I'm glad I'm doing it.
I just wish it didn't take something quite this painful to get me to open my eyes to all that.
It really makes you goggle when you read about professional athletes playing through injuries such as these, doesn't it? Earlier this fall, Tony Romo (the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys) played several weeks straight with broken ribs. Plural. Remember how whiny I was when I strained some cartilage in my ribs this summer? I was questionable for *breathing*, and he was probable for 300-pound athletic men running into him at full speed.
ReplyDeleteAnyway. I hope you start to feel better soon!