"but solace took the fall"

And the hits keep coming.

There's been a twinge somewhere in my right lower leg for about a month. Nothing serious, I figured the new exercise frequency had just strained it a little bit and it would eventually heal. I wasn't ready to give up the peace-like place I get to go when I'm on the treadmill. Certainly no sign of a runner's high yet, but I'll take what I can find.

Finally, Monday, before I went to the gym, I called my PCP and made an appointment to get it checked out on Wednesday, and patted myself on the back because while I wasn't so much overcoming my intense dislike of going to the doctors/self-care/etc, I was at least working around it.

Fast forward to a couple hours later, and I've showered and am heading home to go to the third and final sewing class at the artisan's asylum. I step off the bus, and almost collapse/throw up from the pain. I hobble home, and am sitting on the couch trying to convince myself it is just a bad cramp, even though it feels nothing like a cramp.

I feel there's some sort of moral failure when I go to the ER. That I should be able to more accurately gauge what is and isn't disastrous and if it's not going to kill me, I should be able to wait whatever it is out, treat it at home, stop acknowledging it.

Last May, when I saw the X-rays of my hand, I was actually relieved. I'd thought it was going to be nothing, a hairline fracture that I'd just have to baby for a couple weeks, that I was going to prove to that small voice in my head that I really was just a fuck-up looking for attention (I still believe it's my fault that I fell/that I fall). But the bone had snapped and the ends were pointing in different directions, and it was okay that it hurt, okay that I'd gone to the ER. Mind you, I would have preferred not to have hand surgery, but that's another story altogether, about permeable boundaries, and self-harm, and body modifications.

Prior to moving to Somerville, I'd been to the ER once as a teenager, when I couldn't stop crying from the pain of an earache. Working at the hospital in Northampton meant that I was pretty sure I never, ever wanted to go to its ER. And now I think I've been there a handful of times, and that somehow that's failure on my part.

Part of me doesn't want to let go of how horrible I feel about my frankenboobs and the circumstances that led to having them because I'm deeply superstitious and feel like if I clear this trauma off the deck, whatever's next will step up.

And this certainly isn't the next trauma, all it ended up taking was an ace bandage and a pair of crutches, which I promptly traded out for a cane, because moving around on crutches feels like a recipe for disaster to me, I can't find my balance and I'm graceless enough on my own two feet. (it's possible I'm starting to lose my kinetic awareness of how to fall, and I'm not certain how to refresh it).

Instead of the long, long weekend I intended to take, I've now taken two days off so I don't have to walk around, and will go in to work tomorrow. Tuesday's up in the air, if I can't walk Moppet or putter or explore, I'm not certain the vacation's worth it. And that sounds like a lot of self-pity, even when I think it's only pragmatic. Ah, well.

"but solace took the fall"

And the hits keep coming.

There's been a twinge somewhere in my right lower leg for about a month. Nothing serious, I figured the new exercise frequency had just strained it a little bit and it would eventually heal. I wasn't ready to give up the peace-like place I get to go when I'm on the treadmill. Certainly no sign of a runner's high yet, but I'll take what I can find.

Finally, Monday, before I went to the gym, I called my PCP and made an appointment to get it checked out on Wednesday, and patted myself on the back because while I wasn't so much overcoming my intense dislike of going to the doctors/self-care/etc, I was at least working around it.

Fast forward to a couple hours later, and I've showered and am heading home to go to the third and final sewing class at the artisan's asylum. I step off the bus, and almost collapse/throw up from the pain. I hobble home, and am sitting on the couch trying to convince myself it is just a bad cramp, even though it feels nothing like a cramp.

I feel there's some sort of moral failure when I go to the ER. That I should be able to more accurately gauge what is and isn't disastrous and if it's not going to kill me, I should be able to wait whatever it is out, treat it at home, stop acknowledging it.

Last May, when I saw the X-rays of my hand, I was actually relieved. I'd thought it was going to be nothing, a hairline fracture that I'd just have to baby for a couple weeks, that I was going to prove to that small voice in my head that I really was just a fuck-up looking for attention (I still believe it's my fault that I fell/that I fall). But the bone had snapped and the ends were pointing in different directions, and it was okay that it hurt, okay that I'd gone to the ER. Mind you, I would have preferred not to have hand surgery, but that's another story altogether, about permeable boundaries, and self-harm, and body modifications.

Prior to moving to Somerville, I'd been to the ER once as a teenager, when I couldn't stop crying from the pain of an earache. Working at the hospital in Northampton meant that I was pretty sure I never, ever wanted to go to its ER. And now I think I've been there a handful of times, and that somehow that's failure on my part.

Part of me doesn't want to let go of how horrible I feel about my frankenboobs and the circumstances that led to having them because I'm deeply superstitious and feel like if I clear this trauma off the deck, whatever's next will step up.

And this certainly isn't the next trauma, all it ended up taking was an ace bandage and a pair of crutches, which I promptly traded out for a cane, because moving around on crutches feels like a recipe for disaster to me, I can't find my balance and I'm graceless enough on my own two feet. (it's possible I'm starting to lose my kinetic awareness of how to fall, and I'm not certain how to refresh it).

Instead of the long, long weekend I intended to take, I've now taken two days off so I don't have to walk around, and will go in to work tomorrow. Tuesday's up in the air, if I can't walk Moppet or putter or explore, I'm not certain the vacation's worth it. And that sounds like a lot of self-pity, even when I think it's only pragmatic. Ah, well.