yoko.cool / I'm ready for acceptance
I’ve been dealing with a shoulder/neck/back thing. It’s been a relatively small, kind of annoying thing for a while—probably decades now—but last August I had a flareup that led to a string of doctor appointments, X-rays, MRIs, physical therapy, acupuncture (first time!).
It got better by the end of last year, but flared up again earlier this month, spreading to the arm too. TL;DR of what’s going on is that I have some degeneration with the discs in my spine, as well as some stenosis (narrowing of the holes where the nerves pass through). Given this, it’s not uncommon to experience the pain I’m feeling. And the conditions aren’t really reversible.
The way that some doctors and physical therapists talk about it, it’s framed like something that has a beginning and an end. But it really doesn’t seem that way to me, given my understanding of the imaging readings (I will say it took me talking to several providers to get to this point, which is also an interesting thing to think about).
And it’s been discouraging to think I “fixed” something only to see it “broken” again. I’ve been thinking it’s more realistic (and better for my mind honestly) to frame this as a thing to live with and manage, rather than a thing to fix.
In some ways the “wear and tear” framing—acknowledging and accepting the age of my body—is comforting. It feels more accurate to represent this pain as something that is evergreen rather than a big stress that my body needs to recover from; a stress that my mind needs to eradicate.
But calling a condition chronic, I’ve learned, is also not a favorable framing; providers usually prefer to frame it as an acute thing to fix. So that’s probably a thing I’ll have to navigate more and more.
I remember in my late 20s I was eager to just mentally round up and adopt the mindset of someone in their 30s. I think I’m feeling something similar now, ready to accept being older.
Ok cool, here’s a screenshot of Soleil waiting for me to finish my calls for the day:
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