I felt like writing this as a way to cope I suppose. Like a lot of these blogs, it’s more for myself. Helps me keep my stories straight. So anyway, my back has been giving me a lot of chronic pain in recent years, especially in the past month or month and a half. Then I have my tailbone issues, aka coccydynia. I finally got an MRI done on my spine, and now, I’m left with trying to piece together how this all happened.
Doctors want to hear that your pain was caused by some dramatic injury, like a car accident or something. But mine kind of happened over time. Like lots of little micro-injuries just added up over the years. They dismiss you if you say it like that though. And because I still (fortunately) look youthful, and I’m short, that just makes it even easier to assume I’m faking my pain because I don’t want to work or something. Damned able-bodied neurotypicals. I feel like I understand ableism a lot more now. It took me a few tries to find a doctor who took me seriously.
To take things back to the start, I’ve always had bad posture. I remember being chewed out by my evil band teacher in Middle School almost daily over it. Believe me, I feel bitter over the fact that she was right that I would have back pains when I was older. It always took a lot of extra effort to sit up straight, and doing it for too long hurts. And you know what, it wasn’t my fault. I was diagnosed with autism over the summer. And having underdeveloped back muscles is common with autistic people. Have a look at this Facebook post by NeuroClastic. It sounds like my struggle.
So, I dealt with bad posture my whole life, got crap about it from people from time to time. Lugging around heavy backpacks all through school didn’t help. My attempts to alleviate that by getting a rolling backpack was met with bullying and chastising, of course. And here’s another thing that I think screwed up both my spine and tailbone; when I listened to music, I used to sit in a little chair with my legs and arms crossed, and rock back and forth. For hours on end, day after day. I didn’t go out much. I stayed locked in my dark room, rocking. I didn’t know I was slowly screwing up my body. To date no doctor seems to believe this caused my chronic pain but it’s true, I know it. And it’s another autism thing. It’s called stimming. But like I said, doctors don’t want to hear about little micro-injuries over time, they want to hear that you had some kind of traumatic moment that scarred you for life. Well, I do have something like that.
May 2015, I was in Armenia doing my internship. One of our weekend trips with Birthright Armenia was a bicycle ride from Yerevan to Etchmiadzin, about ten miles. The roads in Armenia aren’t the best. Very bumpy. And after this ride, my tailbone was never the same. I believe I fractured it. And it never healed properly. Over the next few years, I further strained my spine trying not to put too much weight on my tailbone while sitting. And that made things worse. I don’t know how long I’ve had scoliosis, maybe since my teens as far as I know, but I sure have it now.
For the past couple of years I’ve been through physical therapy. Didn’t do anything. Been through several pain killers. Didn’t do anything. Got a steroid injection to my tailbone. First several excruciating tries it didn’t do anything, it finally worked when they went really deep with it. But it’s a temporary fix. And then I went to a chiropractor. It didn’t do anything until around mid-September last month, when the chiropractor decided to go extra rough on me and screwed my back up even worse. And since then it’s just been awful. I can’t do much anymore. Hurts to get out of bed. Last week I got an MRI. To my horror, it was the type where you sit up straight. Sitting up straight and not moving was incredibly painful, and I was in agony for the next two days. It was horrible. I could have tolerated laying down, but not sitting. It’s even worse than standing, which hurts too after too long. Here’s what they found in my MRI:
So I have a bulging disc. Sounds about right. I have a lot of upper back pain too between the shoulder blades. The MRI didn’t find anything there, but the doctor says it may be muscle pain, which I’m willing to believe. Sounds like the plan is more injections, and more physical therapy. I am skeptical this is going to do anything. The injections are going to really suck.
I’m falling apart.
I really have to reevaluate my entire self image now that I can’t do the same things I used to. I’m not the same person I used to be now. A part of me still feels like a kid who’s body happens to be deteriorating. I’m never going to feel like I’m old mentally. Time laughs at all things, including me.
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