This week's prompt: What has been your greatest physical or athletic accomplishment? An endurance race, a difficult hike, a personal health goal? How did you stay motivated to reach the finish line?
I overcame chronic pain, and somewhere in the process got muddy. I am so, so very proud of that.
I have experienced sharp pains in my neck and shoulder since my early teens. Sometimes it made me not want to do things or to socialize. Sometimes I couldn't focus at work, in the grocery store or sitting at church. My father was an acupuncture practitioner and a medical doctor; I tried all of his suggestions and treatments, as well as medications, chiropractors and steroid injections. There was never any permanent relief for my pain. I wondered if something was wrong in my head. MRIs at ages 35, 40 and 45 have revealed disc degeneration, disc herniation, spondylosis, and stenosis. Looking back, I believe the pain was exacerbated because I chose to play the piano instead of doing sports for many years. I had never seen myself as athletic. I would get picked last for every team in Physical Education. I was just a skinny girl. Trying to be athletic was just one humiliating experience after another. Instead, I spent long hours at the keyboard, which was not good for my upper back and neck, though it did teach me discipline and beauty.
In adulthood, doctors kept referring me to physical therapy. In PT they teach you exercises to help strengthen the muscles between the shoulder blades. This is supposed to alleviate pain. But the minute you say the exercises are working they stop PT and leave you on your own. If you don't keep exercising the pain returns and becomes harder to treat the next time. I had never seen myself as athletic, so I had not developed any habits related to regular exercise.
In 2013 I hired a personal trainer after I got kicked out of PT again for improving. I hoped paying a trainer would motivate me to continue to strengthen the targeted muscles. For a year the workouts seemed to help and I felt strong; but then something went terribly wrong and I was in excruciating pain, worse than ever before. I have since learned that planking isn't for everyone. I gave up training and went back to my pain doctor. I was hoping for some steroid injections and medications, but instead he sent me back to PT yet again.
About that time a friend was putting together a team for a 5 mile mud run called Mudderella. Impulsively, I volunteered to do it. Despite my pain issues, I was as strong as I'd ever been after my personal training workouts. The mud, the climbing and crawling just looked fun and I forgot momentarily that I had chronic pain and that I was not athletic.
I've never been able to run any distance. In elementary school the lunch ladies made you run laps around the field during recess if you were rude to them. I was never rude, but some kids were and one day they made all of us run for the entire 30 minutes of recess. One of the recess monitors grimaced at us the whole time. I was breathing so hard I was sure I would die, but she didn't let me walk. We didn't have gym shoes at school back then either, or gym clothes or sports bras. I ran in my oxfords and bell bottom pants, and got them very muddy. My mom was angry that I came home muddy and she yelled at me. From that day forward I never liked running.
But look at me below. 35 years later, I got muddy while running again!
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| From left to right: Molly, Amber, Andrea and ME at Mudderella 2015. |
