The thing that seems to set me off, almost without fail, is when I have any sort of appointment relating to my lawsuit or any pain that resulted from injuries incurred in my accident. This week I've had both.
On Monday I had an appointment with my newest physical therapist for a running assessment. I was really jazzed about this appointment because I foolishly thought having my running "assessed" would mean I would be back on my way to starting a running program, which I haven't been able to maintain in any way, shape or form because of my back injuries. A problem arose when I started having back and hip pain on Thursday, which I alerted my PT to and subsquently cancelled my appointment because of, last week. I was still having problems on Monday, but my PT, seemed unperturbed about it and when I showed up on Monday said she wanted me to continue anyways. I foolishly ignored my better judgement and experience in this area and decided to trust her judgement and go along with the assesment anyways.
So, I got on the treadmill, as instructed, and walked and, later ran. And, other than being completely disconcerted by the fact that I had two women totally staring at my ass and "evalutating" me as I trotted along, things went okay. I was even impressed by my ability to run for several minutes on end and not really get winded at all. Not bad for a three year break (more or less).
What unfolded after my run was what irritated the hell out of me. After I had finished running they basically told me my form was all wrong--I was compensating for tension in my hip and a bad achilles in my left heel. Then, I got down on the floor and proceeded to completely fuck up the exercises I had been shown a week and a half before. I had on a moderate amount of control over my right hip flexors and was totally doing an exercise incorrectly.
Now, I've had bouts of pain worse than this most recent episode before. The incredibley frustrating thing about this appointment was my PT kept looking at the other woman who was clearly more experienced and was acting in what I can only assume to be a supervisory role, and saying "She was so much more stable and controlled last time...." In fact, I bet she repeated this, face flushed and clearly irritated at me (?!), half a dozen times in the 45 minutes I was there. We ended the session with her uttering this phrase again to me, very quickly running through the exercises I had been messing up and rushing me out the door.
I was pissed off. I felt like this woman had wronged me in two very real ways: a) she gave me some seriously false hope which led to a great deal of frustration on my part when it didn't work out the way we had hoped and b) she had the gall to get irritated at me when I was the one in pain. How messed up is that? Now, I realize I may have made her look silly in front of her boss, but for Christ's sake, I didn't do it intentionally and in the grand scheme of things, my on-going back pain is far more serious than her looking a little like a jackass in front of someone she wanted to impress.
I've talked about this before with my friends and family but I don't think any one--not one single fucking person reading this blog right now--can understand how frustrating, disheartening and absolutely maddening is it for me to continue to have health problems as a result of my accident. I was explaining this to the Scientist a couple days ago. I said that I often times divide my adult life into two distinct periods: the life pre-accident and then my life post-accident. Not even Peace Corps has had a big of an effect on how I conduct myself and live my life on a day-to-day basis as those 10 seconds three years ago. My accident was as much a part of my Peace Corps experience as being single and female was: it is a part of me now. And that really fucking sucks.
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