Not exactly an encouraging day

I was awoken by pain in my left ankle at 4:30 this morning. Apparently the acetaminophen I took had worn off. I relocated to the couch were I could more easily hang my left leg off the side. The pain abated after a half hour and I went back to sleep.

I made it through breakfast before the leg started barking at me. The ankle had calmed down but the calf ache was back, as was a new symptom that feels like a wad of clay inside the outer part of my left hip. Between the wad of clay and the nerve pain, my bio-mechanics are all messed up.

So I went for a bike ride. (You knew that was coming.) Within a mile or so my leg calmed down. I rode to the Lincoln Memorial and back on another exceptionally nice March day, except of course for the fact that it is mid-January. The CrossCheck and I are getting along very nicely.

I got off the bike a few times during the ride. As of two weeks ago, all the symptoms that bothered me during last summer’s bike tour had faded away. Today, when dismounting, the pain in my outer left hip came back. It feels like my leg is going to collapse. What fun.

After 30 miles I called it a day. If I couldn’t ride, I am pretty sure I’d lose my mind over this nerve problem.

I went to my second Feldenkrais appointment in the afternoon. The therapist observed my posture and my gait. She accurately noticed that in medical terms I am all kinds of messed up. Then she examined my neck and shoulders which seemed to be awry during my little walk across the room. Very tight.

Next she had me do some movements to loosen the muscles in that area. The movements actually work pretty well and are surprisingly simple. The idea is to learn or perhaps re-learn how to move making best use of the entire body. The best analogy I can come up with is learning how to throw a baseball. If you only use your arm, you can’t throw very well. If instead you involve the arm, the shoulder, the hips, the legs and the back, you can bring some heat.

After that, the therapist was going to examine my back as I lay in a prone position. My left leg decided to start barking again so I rolled on my left side and assumed a fetal position. The therapist spent ten minutes feeling various parts of my back and backside. She noted that my lower left back is very tight and suspects that this new symptom might be the result of a bulging disc. Oh joy.

Long story short, she said that I was a pretty complicated case. It probably has been developing over a long period of time and would take a long time to reverse (with, of course, no guarantees).

I have to agree with her. It seems like every day I get a new symptom. They all seem to conspiring to keep me moving like a robot and to keep increasing my pain and discomfort.

I have to say that I am disappointed. I thought the idea of these sessions was to teach me how to do a regimen of movements to alleviate my pain symptoms, but that didn’t much happen. I realize I can’t expect immediate results, but I feel like I’m treading water. In any case, we agreed that I would keep next week’s appointments on her schedule for now.

Tomorrow I go back to the orthopedists to get his take on my situation.