This is me about a month ago, feeling pretty badass for keeping up with all the men-folk on the camping trip.   I’d just thrown that little hatchet into the tree – with amazing accuracy I might add – after only my second or third attempt.  This was after we chopped wood (or rather, attempted to chop wood in my case) with an 8 pound maul.  8 pounds is not a lot, of course, until it’s lifted overhead and forcefully struck downward again and again and again with, uh, less than proper form.  Truthfully, I was happy I escaped with all my limbs and digits.  People who tend to trip over flat surfaces probably shouldn’t be wielding heavy, sharp instruments.  But I digress.  I can’t remember if the wood-chopping and ax-throwing was before or after the mile+ hike down to the lake, from which I carried my tired 45 pound daughter all the way back to the camp, but I do remember my husband saying with a laugh, “Oh you’re going to be sore tomorrow!”

He said a mouthful.

As it turned out, I wasn’t sore the next day.  It took a few days.  And even then, it was barely more than an annoyance at first …. a “huh, I think I tweaked my shoulder” kind of pain.   I kept up my heavy yoga schedule (modifying here and there to work around the discomfort), kept lifting the girl, kept driving all over creation, kept doing all the things moms do.  It slowly got worse, and I did my best to ignore it.   Until I couldn’t.  And then the exchanges began:

“It hurts.”

“Then go to a doctor.”

“I don’t have a doctor.”  Because I don’t.  (Or, “I don’t like doctors”, or, “I don’t have time for a doctor”, or my favorite:  “What’s a doctor going to do??”)

“Then take a pain killer and put some ice on it.”

And then I’d be near tears, and we’d both go off in a huff because we’re stubborn like that.

Last weekend, the whole “to doctor or not to doctor” decision was taken out of my hands when a flip was suddenly switched, and the pain went from bad to blinding.  No longer confined to my shoulder, it shot down my back, into my neck, and down the entire length of my arm.  A pain so bad I couldn’t sit, couldn’t stand, couldn’t lay down, couldn’t sleep… couldn’t do anything but, well, basically rock pathetically back and forth and cry.   Off to my friendly neighborhood ER… the same familiar place that lovingly matter-of-factly saw me through my emergency endoscopy and subsequent cholecystectomy when my gall bladder had called, “when.”  The same place that had placed a kidney stent when I had hydronephrosis a year after that.  The same place that diagnosed a ruptured ovarian cyst, and the same place that had seen me through my very first, very scary, allergic reaction.

(I’m a healthy person normally, honest!)

Now, a word about emergency rooms, if I may.  They have their shortcomings when it comes to specific medical care to be sure.  And it turned out that I got some incorrect, and even dangerous, advice for this particular condition.  But.  One thing that they’re really really good at is making pain go away.  They didn’t do a single x-ray that morning.  Not an ultrasound, not an MRI, no imaging whatsoever.  But they did give me some pretty fine drugs.  Pumped full of morphine (among other things) I went home and actually SLEPT all afternoon, something I hadn’t done for days.  The next morning I went to a doctor’s office that specializes in sports medicine and physiatry, and returned the next day for an ultrasound, a diagnosis (a significantly torn rotator cuff AND bursitis, because I don’t do these things half-way) and a shot of cortisone.

So now I heal.

The blessing?  I’m sure there are many, but at the moment I see two really big ones.

#1.  It’ll make me a better yoga teacher.   When I heard the ultrasound tech say, in that too-cheery, matter-of-fact manner that ultrasound techs are required to use, “Oh look at that tear!”, what I really heard her say was, “You’re done with yoga training.”   I was devastated.   Thankfully, my devastation lasted less than 24 hours.  The next day I got a return phone call from my instructor – and one of my newest favorite people on the planet – who assured me that it’d be fine.  That I’d take these next weeks to rest and heal and work on my book-work and do what I needed to do, and that when I came to the studio for my contact hours in five weeks that they would absolutely work around the injury… whether it means simply taking it super easy, modifying the asanas, or sitting some out altogether.  I can still continue on with the rest of the class, and I can still earn my RYT by the end of July.  AND, now I’ll have a whole first-hand frame of reference and extra education about helping my students safely work around pain and/or injuries (something by the way, that is a huge factor for sending many people to yoga in the first place.  And one of the most common complaints?  Rotator cuff issues!)  My education will suddenly be deeper, richer, and a heck of a lot more personal.  That’s a blessing.

And, #2.  It’s a lesson that for some reason I seem destined to learn over and over (and over and over and over) until I really get it, but this is forcing me to rest, and to learn to be okay with it!  I don’t like being told not to do yoga.  Not to do housework.  Not to pick up my daughter.  Not to do anything really physical for the next two weeks.  I don’t like it at all.  But. I. Need. It.  My doctor tells me I need it.  My body tells me I need it.   So I rest.  I learn to let others do for me.  I learn to stop running around.  I learn to honor my body and my injury.  I learn to brush my teeth with my left hand instead of my right.  In two weeks I get to start physical therapy (progress!), but for now, I just… heal.  I rest.  And rest is a blessing, too.

I’m still in a lot of pain.  As it turns out, ice and anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxants only do so much when you let an injury get as bad as mine did.  I’m fairly grumpy and frustrated about it all, I’m only sleeping a few hours a night, and Netflix instant streaming is my new best friend.  But right now, today, I’ll focus on the blessings.

And then I’ll take another Valium.