The Big Important Life Update (Part 2)

In Part 1 of the Big Important Life Update I spoke about friendship and about people actually caring after I had my big breakthrough. I ended on a good note saying that I hope everyone can live their life to the fullest. I also spoke about how my time in therapy is almost done and over with.

It is true, yes. I am actually nearly done. About a month or so ago I had my evaluation where we looked back on the tree months before and what is to come in the three months after the evaluation and set a few goals that I wanted to accomplish. Things went a little wonky at therapy because of vacations and the fact that the ‘head’ psychotherapist for my group had fallen ill and it would be a while before she would return to work. It had the entire group quite worried (especially me because I’m weirdly over protective of the people in my life, even if it is a therapist) because we did not know exactly what was going on, al we had heard was that she was sick and wouldn’t be able to come in.

After a week or so we told her co-therapist and other therapists that we were quite worried and we would like to know what was going on. After conferring with her, they told us what was going on and why she wouldn’t be able to come back for a while. She had an enormous pain in her shoulder that shot through to her arm and hand and they were afraid it was a tendon infection. While it was a huge relief that it was not a life threatening thing, I absolutely knew how she must have felt.

Whenever I have stress, or if something is going on, it immediately takes its toll on my body, specifically the head/neck/shoulder area. Just around the time that my therapist got sick, it was a very stressful time for me. I was worried about the last part of therapy, didn’t know what to do and it just took a lot out of my body. My neck completely cramped up, my shoulder hurt and I pretty much would have daily headaches.

Because the pain and stiffness in my neck got so intense I decided, albeit a bit late, to go to the doctor and he told me to see a physical therapist because one of the muscles in my neck was completely cramped up and pretty much wouldn’t budge without proper treatment. I found a physical therapist at a medical center nearby, it was actually just a block away and would take me two whole minutes to ride my bicycle to.

I made an appointment and met with an intern and Sandra, who would be my phys. therapist after the first session. They asked me all sorts of questions then tried some movements to see how far my neck would move and such and then the intern did a little massage therapy on my neck and that felt absolutely FANTASTIC… until the next day.

That morning I woke up and couldn’t even turn my neck to EITHER side without pain shooting through. Imagine an burning elastic band getting snapped against you REALLY HARD and then multiply it by oh, let’s say 10 times. That’s how much it hurt. Though I could hardly move I still decided to go to therapy. I’d rather be miserable at therapy where I could talk about how miserable I was then wallow in it at home. I CRIED THE ENTIRE WAY OVER. I KID YOU NOT

Thankfully one of my fellow group members was already there and comforted me. I called the doc’s office and asked his assistant what the heck was going on, if I should come in, or visit my physical therapist or what. THEN I CRIED AGAIN. I couldn’t even speak normal.

The assistant was like “aw gosh, you’re quite emotional about it”

Well yes woman, I AM IN THE WORST PHYSICAL PAIN OF MY LIFE DAMMIT! OF COURSE I AM EMOTIONAL ABOUT IT.

She said it could be a side effect from the massage I received because they had messed with the muscled and tried to loosen it up and the muscle was responding to it. She said it could get worse before it got better.

FUCK THAT

She said she’d confer with the doctor and had him call me back. Doctor confirmed that it was most likely a side effect of the massage and that I should call the phys. therapist and have her take a look at it. So I called her up and she said the same thing. Then she told me to come in and she’d give it another whirl to try and make the shoulder/neck area relax more.

It actually helped and we decided to do the massage therapy twice a week to get the muscle to relax faster and then spread out the appointments and make sure that area would stay relaxed. Next Friday I will go on for my second to last appointment. I can already say that while the muscle can still get quite tense, it goes away faster and isn’t nearly as cramped up as it used to be. Even when I get stress and it cramps up again, I simply have to stretch my neck a little and keep it moving, the cramping goes away quite fast.

While I believe there is still something wrong with that area of the neck, or at least just the muscle that will always be a weak spot. I can say I feel 90% better then a few months ago.

to be continued…