Will Gratitude Give Me Less Back Pain?

In the past month, my body has been trying to kill me.

I’ve had two weeks of hormonal hell, which harkened back to the bad old days of teenage angst. It was so severe I actually phoned my yoga guru, who also happens to be my massage therapist. She suggested  that this was perhaps due to repressed memories that are linked to my depression. I told her I thought it was that my ovaries have a vendetta against me and that they were in the middle of a Coup to overrun my brain. To which she replied, “Yes. That, too.” (She’s fairly awesome.)

The full moon came and screwed things up even more. While walking to my car, I planted my left foot squarely on a patch of ice. Lefty shot out from under me impossibly fast as the rest of my body swung around and pinwheeled in what I can only imagine was a ballet-like twirl of which Mikhail Baryshnikov would be envious. And it hurt.

Immediately my back and hips went into spasm while my tailbone thoughtfully tried to find a new home somewhere near my lungs.

I  plodded on with life. Maybe bitched and moaned a bit. Well okay, I complained like hell as I wandered around and kept my family fed and watered in a semi-hunchback posture. But I did it. Because I’m a trooper. Pain? Phhhht! Fuck pain. I have me some shit to do!!!!!!!

The next day I felt better after some rest and anti-inflammatory drugs. I almost ran around the house, getting things done, only cussing occasionally. In the midst of my “This Place Is A Hell Hole” cleaning spree, I got my foot tangled in the curtains, tripped myself, did a dance which attracted the whole household’s attention and whammed my hip solidly on a table.

My ever sympathetic husband watched from his easy chair and calmly said “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I don’t hold it against him. The man is desensitized to my flailings.

Another night and more drugs. I decided that even in my pain, I am a hero, and we need groceries! I threw on my cape (otherwise known as my  robe) and stoically made it to the store. Weirdly, I saw 7 other women in the produce section doing the lean-over-the-cart-in-back-pain shuffle on that very day. We all gave each other the nostril salute, as if to reassure each other we were, in fact, good mothers, even though every step was punctuated with the words “Ow! Sonofabitch!” I felt less alone.

I arrived home and with bags in hand stepped carefully out of the car. Hmm. Not too bad. As I made my way around the front of the car, a piece of ice threw itself under my right foot and had me slip to the point I truly thought my vagina was broken. At my age, the splits with a back bend? Really not  a good idea.

The second thought that went through my mind (the first was MOTHERFUCKER!)  was that somehow, the universe was going to magically cure my back pain as I had wrenched myself in the exact opposite direction as I had the first time! Yay! Tailbone fixed! Yay! Not even close.

I put in a frantic call to my massage therapist. When I told her what had happened, she was silent for a moment before she said “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I replied “I don’t know! I’m unbalanced!” “To which she said “I’ll bet you’ve heard that before, huh?” (I sort of love her even more after that.)

I went for a massage and she got me all straightened out. She also droned on about the mind/body connection and that if we let our past and fears dictate blah, blah, blah… I stopped listening to her. The pain went away. For a few days anyway. Then I got a cold. And a cold sore.

Take a moment. Are you imagining my battered, hunchback, snotful, swollen lipped self? It’s not pretty, is it?

Around that time, I saw Dr. Andrew Weil on Dr. Oz. (Does it seem like there is a shitload of Dr.s on television these days? Are they cheaper than  actors or are they bad Dr.s? Like the accidental amputation kind?) Dr. Weil says that if you write in a gratitude journal every day for two weeks you can add something like thirty-seven years to your life expectancy or something. What ever. It’s worth a shot.

Today, I am grateful for the fact that I didn’t clothesline myself on the towel bar when I tripped as I got out of the shower.

That even after making supper and using a knife, I have all my digits.

Grateful that while unloading the dishwasher I didn’t fall into it.

Very grateful that the guy whose foot I tromped on in BestBuy didn’t punch me in the throat. (I think he kinda wanted to.)

And I am especially grateful that I didn’t rip off my baby toe when I stubbed it in the middle of the night. Even though it bled all over, to the point I actually wondered if I was peeing on my foot when I went to the toilet.

There. Gratitude journal started. It wasn’t too hard. Start small, right?

And, Dear God, please don’t let me fall down for any reason this week.

I don’t think my tailbone or my massage therapist could handle it.