Before anyone gets too worried, I’m going through my old drafts. I’m doing mostly ok at the moment, I should be more diligent about my PT exercises, but that’s not really new either.

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“So how did you hurt yourself?”

I really love that question. It came up in my most recent video appointment with my newest physical therapist — yes, newest, I’ve been through several in the last few years, I think it is a side effect of getting old, or possibly more aware? I did my best to dredge up an answer, and I think I almost did.

I have a body, sure, but most of the time I don’t pay a lot of attention to it. I put clothes on it, wash it, feed it, make it wear a coat when it is cold out. I’m aware I have one, and sometimes I knock it into things. Up until a few days ago, I had a massive bruise on my thigh and I still don’t know quite how I got it. I probably bumped into something. It happens. I may have over-extended something when I was moving storage bins around in the garage. How did I hurt myself? Accidentally.

When I had my initial video appointment, my doctor was pretty proud of me for emailing her, to be honest, I was pretty proud of me too. As I explained to her, it was the kind of pain that felt extra wrong and didn’t start to get better immediately, and I started to google solutions, so I figured I should probably at least email her. If it is bad enough that I’m seeking real solutions on google, I should probably email my doctor.

I’m still working on my bodily awareness, not just ignoring the situation, and normalizing the not so random aches and pains. I’m trying not to put on a good face and present as totally fine when I’m not actually ok at all. This isn’t just a Christian Science thing, plenty of people smile when they’re frustrated/upset.

I’m trying to be honest with myself and my doctor/physical therapist and not downplay the pain, but also not make it out to be worse than it is. THIS IS REALLY DIFFICULT. Yes, it was bad enough I started to search for solutions on my own, but it was not so bad that I was completely nonfunctional. Pain scales are their own tricky mess, I’m partial to the #workofartpainscale and I’d say was somewhere between 4 and 5 usually is enough to get me to email my doctor.

So how did I hurt myself? I have no clue. Sometimes these things happen, and this time I made the decision to take care of it. Good job me. Now to actually go do the physical therapy exercises. Being a responsible person takes work.