Wow. It’s been almost two years since my last post. I hadn’t realized it has been that long. It’s definitely time for an update!
You’re probably aware I’ve been struggling with illness, physical and mental, over the past number of years. My recovery has been excruciatingly slow and painful.
It’s hard to keep up a running blog when I’m not running. I can’t run, not now and I miss it like crazy. I’ve been seeing so many posts about upcoming races, spring and summer are always full of them and I miss being a part of the excitement. This recovery is taking so much longer than I thought it would.
I can’t remember a time that I wasn’t in pain.
When I was in my early teens, I was karate flipped over someone’s shoulder as a joke. It turned out to be a bad joke; I was knocked unconscious and taken to A&E. It turns out that I had hyper-extended my neck, tore up some muscles in my back and chipped a vertebrae.
I’ve been in chronic pain ever since. The level of pain varies. Sometimes it’s a dull ache between my shoulder blades. Sometimes the pain is so intense it radiates outwards until I wonder how anyone standing next to me can’t feel it too. And twice, the pain has been so bad I’ve been nearly paralyzed with it. My spine has grown into the wrong alignment but no amount of treatment has helped; and believe me I have tried nearly everything. My back always hurts.
I am not ok.
We are all made up of a mind, body and spirit. When one gets broken, the others can be a part of what helps lift a person back up again. But when all three come under pressure, sustained and prolonged pressure, then break all at once…like Humpty Dumpty it seems impossible that the mind, body and spirit can be put back together again.
I’m in that place right now. And while I know it’s ok to not be ok, I’m currently getting the help I need to get out of it. But in between appointments, and specialists and treatment and medication, there are things I have to take responsibility for and begin to change in order to be whole again.
Back in August I went for my first ever sport massage. This was to help keep the legs injury free while I upped the intensity of my marathon training, hitting longer and longer distances.
Despite my initial nervousness, it turned out that the sport massage was just what I needed. But I almost didn’t go, so before I tell you about the sport massage itself, I want to tell the whole story.
I once told someone that I don’t eat chocolate. Her response was a shocked “You must have a miserable life!”.
Uh. Well no, I don’t actually. My life is pretty good, thank you very much.
This Fat Girl Runs 