neck

Went back to the doc yesterday for a second session of...um...I don't know what it is...she is a DO not an MD and she does some sort of manipulation work.  Not chiropractic...very different.  Very gentle.  So gentle that I wonder if she is even touching me at times. I had wanted to see her before Odessa because my neck has been bad, bad, bad. Now, I should clarify that this year's bad and last year's bad are very different.  Some of you who read this did not know me before I started to see the PT guy I go to; at the point I started working with Paul I could only turn my head about 15 degrees on the left and only about 10 degrees on the right.  My *super supportive doctor* told me I only had about  10 years of mobility left in me...so where I am now compared to then is as vast as an ocean.

That being said...I have become accustomed to a certain level of continual pain... tightness... irritation; even numbness in my hand.

Ok, cut to the chase....the doc worked on me yesterday and said that the placement was better, that the neck was not as bad as it had been in the previous session...which I already knew.  There is this funny thing that can happen to me when I get body work, sometimes I feel much worse for almost a week after treatment before I feel better.  I always assume something is shifting.  Well, even post competition, I woke up Monday and my neck felt a bit better than it had all weekend.

Post treatment yesterday....I was actually completely pain free.

I was almost scared.  I am so used to being in pain that the lack of pain feels...unsettling?

I hate to admit this, but I think that after almost 15 years of this crap that I have come to define myself by this pain. Who am I without it?  Am I ready to let it go?  What happens if it is gone?

Of course, intellectually I want it gone...but what goes beyond that, what on a cellular level defines me by pain? Is it also something I lean on so that I don't have to work as hard in the gym or on the field?

lots for me to think about here....

I did go to the gym last night which I don't normally do after body work...a couple of reasons...I wanted to just move.  I also wanted to see how I could workout and maintain this...lack of feeling in my neck.  I did, by the way.  I did not trigger anything.  At about 10:30 last night, something slid back in...but that is the longest stretch I can ever remember.

From 2-10...no neck pain...I was of course still hyper aware of it though....

Perhaps it is possible to, as Paul the PT guy puts it, feel better than you ever thought you could. I know I have felt "better" but is it possible to feel "good," is it possible to *not* think about my neck?

Maybe, just maybe, I am ready to find out.

oh...and here is the 18...  ha!