This all probably started with the accident at the sea last August that I described in an earlier post. Shit happens, even in the life of a yogateacher.
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I had an accident. It is as simple as that... Yoga is not a supernatural power that guards us against the aches and pains of life. Against sickness, old age and death. It is a practice to deal with and open up to those very humane conditions:-)
Anyway ... I healed, I thought.
And then this spring the pain returned, bigger, worse, more unpredictable. Hard to shoulder because of the bizarre pattern. I never knew what I awoke to. One of those days where I would jump out of bed and feel like a 9-year old. Dancing around, feeling at home with my breath, or one of the other kind of days ...
I would wake up during the night crying with pain. The crying woke me up. And then, not being able to sleep again, not finding rest, no ease. Lying there trying to focus on my breath and going in to the pain. Then the fear. Something is so wrong, fear said. This must be really serious.
And then in the morning, supporting myself to stand up and walking like a 90-year old. Sobbing with pain and humiliation. The humiliation of not being in control.
Fluctuating between accepting the pain and trusting my body and feeling like a victim.
Irritable. And sometimes letting my surroundings, my son and my husband carry the weight of my irritation. Taking it out and them.
The first weeks I tried to deal with it in my usual manner. Stand, sit and lie on my mat, stretch it out, tight muscles I thought, and feeling the wonderful letting go with the breath ... ahhh, now, I'm on the other side. Now.
Only to suffer more pain afterwards. There seemed to be no end to it. No change. No relief, that I could count on. I couldn't rely on my usual tools, my matpractice felt crippled by pain.
My breath was not the joyous and full of depth. It just helped me cope. One breath at a time. Even passive stretches would sometimes provoke the onset of an attack. And then sometimes not. Walking was good. Sometimes. Sometimes not. I felt so out of control. I couldn't run. Not hop. Swimming was okay, sometimes. Sometimes not.
I returned to sittingpractice and then at times, painkillers. The last resort. I have never taken so many painkillers in my life;-)
Then I sought help. I called the doctors office, talked to the nurse and got an appointment with a physiotherapist, kind fellow, who stretched my psoas and massaged my neck. Nice, but it seemed not to the point at all. I went there three times to no effect, then I called the doctor again.
Got an appointment with "the best doctor in the world" the secretary said. I felt the relief flowing through my muscles, my breath opening up, my belly relaxing, and looked forward to talking to this wonderful doctor, who on top of everything was Danish. I could speak with him in my native language. Oh joy!
I sat in the waiting room with other human beings of the kind that you normally call patients. Just human beings in a vulnerable situation. I looked at their faces and I felt compassion. The old guy sitting there with his cough, drops of spittle in his beard, body sagging, noisy laboured breath, "he's not in a good way", I thought. I felt too strong and energetic and a little bit guilty to seek help, as though it wasn't quite legitimate. After all, was it so bad? The painful days and nights seemed so far away suddenly.
On the wall there were photos of all the doctors in the house (here in Sweden we have the vårdcentral, which are like miniature hospitals, 10-12 doctors) and saw the seemingly kind face of my doctor. Calmed, I sat down and waited...time passed...half an hour later I went out to the secretary and asked whether "the best docot in the world" had forgotten me. It seemed that he had.
Five minutes later he came out to get me. Called my name, watched me get up and turned around and went ahead. I followed him to his office where we both stood up. Like we were on our way somewhere. He seemed in a hurry (no wonder maybe, since he had forgotten me and now probably had other patients waiting).
His first words were not: "How can I help you?" or: "Tell me your story"
He said: "I always look at a patient to see how they get up, especially if they have backproblems. You can read a lot from the way a person gets up and walks. You don't seem visibly troubled by your back."
"Well, not right now, it comes and goes ..." He went through the motions of listening, but he had already made up his mind. I was one of those people who wanted attention, treatment, but weren't prepared to do anything themselves.
I even declined stronger medication, which was what he offered me, so clearly I was just exaggerating my pain.
I sat down on a chair in the room, explaining, that the pain seemed less, when I sat. His reply was: "Oh, it is usually the other way around. Backpatients usually prefer to stand." *
I crumbled. I felt humiliated, belittled. He told me off, put me in my place. Tested my reflexes sporadically, didn't hear my story. Almost laughed at me ...
I just felt numbed. Disappointed. Unhappy. Frustrated. But not angry. The anger came later. I only realized that it was appropriate to get angry when I told the story to my husband. And he got angry on my behalf.
Only through the help of my husband did I get, first an x-ray, which didn't show anything, duh, they don't, unless it's cancer or something and then in the end an MR-scan and an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. The whole process took 4 months. And it only came through so "fast" because my husband is a doctor and knows the system. Without him I could still be waiting for an MR. All the while having these attacks of pain and not knowing.
By then I had been treated by a joke of an acupuncturist and a naprapath, a bit like a chiropractor, but not quite ..., and she was kind and listened, but her very painful treatments just made matters worse.
And then I returned to my former strategy of living one day at a time and giving up hope of help from the outside.
It is such a vulnerable place to be. To be in pain and not know. To suddenly feel that the body I know so well I don't know at all.
And to entrust your body to others is the most vulnerable of all positions. I could hear my body telling me: Enough. Now leave me alone.
And my husband told me: The body knows how to heal if you let it. Can you let it? Could I? Can I?
I still don't quite know, but more about that later in the Insight-part of the story, which will follow in part 2.
The MR showed a cyst in my spine. A so-called synovial cyst. It makes the passage for the cauda equina nerve bundle too narrow and therefor the pain. The cauda equina is a bundle of nerves that splits and supplies the hip, the pelvis and the leg and that explained the shifting symptoms, although the logic of the coming and going of symptoms still escapes me.
My reality now is, that I live with pain sometimes and I have painfree days, more or less. At least I have that. I don't know what created the cyst, and there is no way of knowing, so let that go.
I was left with a choice to either get surgery or let it be. Let it heal. Give it time. Be patient.
The surgeon adviced me to do the latter, which I am happy to.
So far so good. My next post will be about, how I go about that. Letting it heal. Giving it time. Being patient. How to do that in a way, that is helpful and informed?
*someone with a synovial cyst will find relief in sitting. It creates space in the spine and takes the pressure off the nervebundle.
Fluctuating between accepting the pain and trusting my body and feeling like a victim.
Irritable. And sometimes letting my surroundings, my son and my husband carry the weight of my irritation. Taking it out and them.
The first weeks I tried to deal with it in my usual manner. Stand, sit and lie on my mat, stretch it out, tight muscles I thought, and feeling the wonderful letting go with the breath ... ahhh, now, I'm on the other side. Now.
Only to suffer more pain afterwards. There seemed to be no end to it. No change. No relief, that I could count on. I couldn't rely on my usual tools, my matpractice felt crippled by pain.
My breath was not the joyous and full of depth. It just helped me cope. One breath at a time. Even passive stretches would sometimes provoke the onset of an attack. And then sometimes not. Walking was good. Sometimes. Sometimes not. I felt so out of control. I couldn't run. Not hop. Swimming was okay, sometimes. Sometimes not.
I returned to sittingpractice and then at times, painkillers. The last resort. I have never taken so many painkillers in my life;-)
Then I sought help. I called the doctors office, talked to the nurse and got an appointment with a physiotherapist, kind fellow, who stretched my psoas and massaged my neck. Nice, but it seemed not to the point at all. I went there three times to no effect, then I called the doctor again.
Got an appointment with "the best doctor in the world" the secretary said. I felt the relief flowing through my muscles, my breath opening up, my belly relaxing, and looked forward to talking to this wonderful doctor, who on top of everything was Danish. I could speak with him in my native language. Oh joy!
I sat in the waiting room with other human beings of the kind that you normally call patients. Just human beings in a vulnerable situation. I looked at their faces and I felt compassion. The old guy sitting there with his cough, drops of spittle in his beard, body sagging, noisy laboured breath, "he's not in a good way", I thought. I felt too strong and energetic and a little bit guilty to seek help, as though it wasn't quite legitimate. After all, was it so bad? The painful days and nights seemed so far away suddenly.
On the wall there were photos of all the doctors in the house (here in Sweden we have the vårdcentral, which are like miniature hospitals, 10-12 doctors) and saw the seemingly kind face of my doctor. Calmed, I sat down and waited...time passed...half an hour later I went out to the secretary and asked whether "the best docot in the world" had forgotten me. It seemed that he had.
Five minutes later he came out to get me. Called my name, watched me get up and turned around and went ahead. I followed him to his office where we both stood up. Like we were on our way somewhere. He seemed in a hurry (no wonder maybe, since he had forgotten me and now probably had other patients waiting).
His first words were not: "How can I help you?" or: "Tell me your story"
He said: "I always look at a patient to see how they get up, especially if they have backproblems. You can read a lot from the way a person gets up and walks. You don't seem visibly troubled by your back."
"Well, not right now, it comes and goes ..." He went through the motions of listening, but he had already made up his mind. I was one of those people who wanted attention, treatment, but weren't prepared to do anything themselves.
I even declined stronger medication, which was what he offered me, so clearly I was just exaggerating my pain.
I sat down on a chair in the room, explaining, that the pain seemed less, when I sat. His reply was: "Oh, it is usually the other way around. Backpatients usually prefer to stand." *
I crumbled. I felt humiliated, belittled. He told me off, put me in my place. Tested my reflexes sporadically, didn't hear my story. Almost laughed at me ...
I just felt numbed. Disappointed. Unhappy. Frustrated. But not angry. The anger came later. I only realized that it was appropriate to get angry when I told the story to my husband. And he got angry on my behalf.
Only through the help of my husband did I get, first an x-ray, which didn't show anything, duh, they don't, unless it's cancer or something and then in the end an MR-scan and an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. The whole process took 4 months. And it only came through so "fast" because my husband is a doctor and knows the system. Without him I could still be waiting for an MR. All the while having these attacks of pain and not knowing.
By then I had been treated by a joke of an acupuncturist and a naprapath, a bit like a chiropractor, but not quite ..., and she was kind and listened, but her very painful treatments just made matters worse.
And then I returned to my former strategy of living one day at a time and giving up hope of help from the outside.
It is such a vulnerable place to be. To be in pain and not know. To suddenly feel that the body I know so well I don't know at all.
And to entrust your body to others is the most vulnerable of all positions. I could hear my body telling me: Enough. Now leave me alone.
And my husband told me: The body knows how to heal if you let it. Can you let it? Could I? Can I?
I still don't quite know, but more about that later in the Insight-part of the story, which will follow in part 2.
The MR showed a cyst in my spine. A so-called synovial cyst. It makes the passage for the cauda equina nerve bundle too narrow and therefor the pain. The cauda equina is a bundle of nerves that splits and supplies the hip, the pelvis and the leg and that explained the shifting symptoms, although the logic of the coming and going of symptoms still escapes me.
My reality now is, that I live with pain sometimes and I have painfree days, more or less. At least I have that. I don't know what created the cyst, and there is no way of knowing, so let that go.
I was left with a choice to either get surgery or let it be. Let it heal. Give it time. Be patient.
The surgeon adviced me to do the latter, which I am happy to.
So far so good. My next post will be about, how I go about that. Letting it heal. Giving it time. Being patient. How to do that in a way, that is helpful and informed?
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