1.6.03 stoic

Today I went to a new chiropractor. The standard intake form never allows enough space for my medical history so I just jotted a few notes and made X marks on the picture of the body, showing the various points where my system of stoic endurance isn't winning out.

Last year I went to see meteor showers with Polly and clan, Gabriel and Annapurna, Gwineth and Roman, and a bunch of people I had never met. I was looking up at the sky as I sat down, too hard, in the grassy and deceptively soft meadow. Apparently there had once been an apple orchard or some other tree root infrastructure, because there was a wacking jolt to my spine and I gasped and whispered I'm broken. I stretched out on the ground and the whole world was spinning and I knew that I was seriously damaged, in fact had broken my coccyx. Annapurna sang Smiths songs in my ear and handed around wine in paper cups as everyone else continued their merry party.

Polly drove me home and I stretched out on my living room floor and did not budge for twelve hours, when Byron called home from a business trip to tell me amusing stories. I had been silently gnashing my teeth but I burst into tears at the sound of his voice. He patiently asked did you call someone for help, a ride to the hospital?

The answer was no; I won't consent to x-rays so there is little point in being examined. He asked did you call someone to take care of you?

No, of course not, I would rather not be observed in a piteous state.

He asked did you take Arnica? and at that question I blinked. Arnica! Salvation. Faith cure, friend. I asked one of the children to fetch a vial from the kitchen and gobbled it down, and then called Stevie and asked her to bring more.

When she arrived at the house with Arnica and salves I couldn't get up. It was days before I could walk properly, go up the stairs to my own bed. My chiropractor said the coccyx was indeed broken, ligaments and muscles torn. I had to stop riding my bicycle, walking on uneven surfaces, sitting in normal socially approved fashion at events. I couldn't sit at my desk and type and after a few months had to buy a laptop so I could sit cross-legged on the wood floor to check email. But even then, only for brief periods.

At the time I remember stating that I was fine with a glare or grim smile. But I wasn't, and only now, over a year later, is it clear how badly I was hurt, and how little the regimen of treatments has helped. Mainly because it still hurts, but also because my new chiropractor pointed out radical changes in my posture and the way I hold my shoulders and sit and walk, differences that are astonishing when compared to how I used to stride about aggressively, arms on hips. I've assumed a more protective stance. I still can't ride my bicycle.

I guess that I'm really old if I have a back injury. This is something I'll have to view as a mark of status -- I've arrived at a distant and unbelievable age if I can claim a banal, normal, and even silly injury like this. I'm so old, I am required by physician edict to wear comfortable, ugly shoes. I don't have to go to the oncologist this week: I have to go to physical therapy.

share: facebook|stumbleupon|twitter