What has this week taught me?

What has this week taught me?

Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

That's it.  That was seriously all I was going to write.

Not very inspiring, huh?

...

Still reading?  Sigh.  I kind of wish you weren't.

I have the house to myself and I'm sorta kinda couch bound.  Or at least trying to give my body a rest.  The perfect scenario for some blogging, right?  Right.  Except I've got nothing.  Absolutely nothing. (...as already stated)

Well no.  That's a lie.  I have something.  But it's depressing and redundant and I'm over it.  I don't want a pity party.  I hate parties (I'm more of a celebration kind of girl) and pity parties are the worst.

But hey, I'm here and apparently so are you.  So lame or not, here we go.

We had an epic water balloon battle over Memorial Day weekend.  I did something to my hip.  Not horrible, but enough to scare me into action.  I didn't want it to turn into something worse, so I emailed my physical therapist and he squeezed me into his busy schedule.  My SI (sacroiliac) joint was out, so he fixed me.  I was so happy.

Fast forward 3 days.  I'm walking around town minding my own business when suddenly I can barely put one foot in front of the other.  My hip and lower back are in extreme pain.  Awesome.  You want to know what's even awesomer?  The pain is on my GOOD side.

By Monday I was desperate enough to call my orthopedist and drive down to Arlington.  He gave me drugs and said it's my SI.  Again.  Lame.  When Rick adjusted my left side, my right side started working overtime to try to keep things in alignment.  Or something like that.  So back to PT it is.

Great.

Except not really.  NONE of the meds have put a dent in things.  My physical therapist was on vacation this past week, but he's super stellar and got me in to see someone in the meantime.  She said I was only moderately out of alignment.  Which was actually kind of discouraging.  I know that sounds weird.  But picture this.  It feels like someone ripped out your leg, spun it around a few times, and jammed it up your spine.  Wouldn't it be sweet if your SI was out and they could just pop it back in and you'd feel a million times better?  YES PLEASE.

But no.

That makes me feel like a wimp.  Come on, Brittany.  Get it together.

Sigh.

And that's the end of the story.  Which is why I didn't even want to write this.  There's no moral to the story and certainly no happy ending.  I hate posts like this.

But I've promised to be real here and this is my reality.

And I can't help but be a little bit optimistic.  My physical therapist is willing to start seeing me again, but he wants me to see a specialist first.  He thinks she might be able to help me.  You usually have to wait several weeks to see her, but she had a opening tomorrow morning.  So I'm hesitantly hopeful.

Hope.  I know it's something I've written about before.  At times I hate it.  Hope leaves room for disappointment.  And I don't know how much more disappointment I can take.  But I also don't know how I'll survive another week at work like this, so I'm still holding out for some hope I suppose.

I'm reminded of the genetic testing I had done in the fall.  I'm hypermobile, which sounds great but tends to be a recipe for disaster.  And apparently I have the "A118G variant, which is associated with reduced expression of mu opioid receptors and increased sensitivity to pain."  Basically I experience higher levels of pain than a "normal" person does.  And I require higher doses of medication to treat said pain because my body doesn't properly metabolize the drugs.  A particularly unfortunate combination.  Which makes sense.  I've always avoided taking pain meds because they don't do much for me.  I feel like the amount I have to take to experience relief would turn me into an addict.  I have enough issues.  I don't need to add pain med addict to the list.

I hate that I just told you all of that.  I've just been ignoring most of it.  It's lame (a word I've used a lot in this post).  SUCK IT UP AND DEAL, BRITTANY.  I should be able to tolerate this.  SI pain shouldn't be debilitating.  But apparently denying my reality is just a form of avoidance.  It only results in frustration and doesn't let me move forward.  I'm stuck running (more like limping) in a circle.  Plus they say you shouldn't "should" on yourself.  Which I've always found ironic.  But hey, there's something to it.

Well that's the end for real this time. Abrupt, I know.  Congratulations for making it here.