I had an appointment with my chiropractor today. When Dr. Jen asked me how I was doing today, I told her that I’d hurt myself. I explained about how, sadly, it was NOT when I was lifting heavy stuff or doing push-ups or whatnot. I was simply doing some stretching (I can’t remember the specifics – whether I was in yoga class or warming up before a workout or stretching after lifting or what). Suddenly, the muscle in my upper right back, over my shoulder blade, went “NOOOO!!!!” and hurt. I told her that now that muscle hurt whenever I tried to do push-ups or other horizontal motions – or carried heavy things – or shoveled snow. So I’d stopped doing push-ups over a week ago. I was now behind in my 20,013 push-ups in 2013 challenge and frustrated and hoped she and/or the massage therapist could tell me when I’d be healed so I could get back to it.
Dr. Jen had a look. She does that magical chiropractor thing where you sit and she looks at you and SEES if you are all wonky. I was all wonky. She explained that blah-blah to the blah-blah and the blah-blah and now my shoulder was pressing on my collarbone. (I have the attention span of a flea and a medical professional talking to me tends to sound like a teacher talking to Charlie Brown.) Basically, I hadn’t torn or sprained or otherwise injured a muscle – I’d thrown my skeletal system out of whack… again.
Often, when Dr. Jen “fixes” me, there is a really loud cracking sound and I worry she’s just cracked all of my vertebrae and I’ll be paralyzed from the neck down – or my head will just loll off on to my shoulder as my neck no longer works. This adjustment – it seemed like nothing, honestly. I bent my arm, she took hold, she gave a little tug – hardly any sound at all.
Then it hit me. OH, SWEET MOTHER OF BOB… THE PAIN!!!! AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!
If I wasn’t so completely in love with Dr. Jen, I might have punched her. “NOW IT HURTS A LOT WORSE!” I whined, clutching my now useless right arm.
She smiled smugly and reminded me she gets paid for hurting people. She’s evil and AWESOME that way.
Then she turned me over to one of the massage therapists – Steve, who proudly claims he gets to be “good cop” to Dr. Jen’s “bad cop” and he is correct. He asked me if it was tender “here” and put his hands lightly on my right shoulder blade. YES!!!! AHHH!!! HURTS!!!!
Steve is also awesome (as are all the people at Millennium Wellness Group – seriously, if you are anywhere near Chicago, they are superb, go there). Steve started with my neck, which doesn’t hurt.
He worked slowly to my hurting muscle. When he got there, he asked if it hurt… and I said “yes” – but it was the “hurts so good” hurt, that I know means he’s fixing things and I will be rewarded for the pain later with a fixed muscle. I wasn’t crying. I told him that since HE was doing this, it was all good – if some stranger on the street did this, I’d scream “WHAT THE HECK! THAT HURTS!” and punch them… and he pointed out that if some stranger started rubbing my back… that would be weird and creepy and I should punch them regardless of hurting. True.
I talked a lot. Talking is one way of distracting myself from hurting things. I can talk a LOT and I can talk FAST and I can talk LOUD – I am highly skilled at talking. So, I told Steve all about the push-up challenge and the lifting and the trying REALLY REALLY hard to get visible muscles but the old wives tale that “women that lift heavy will get bulky” was not holding true for me AT ALL… and I still had no visible muscles and still have “twig arms” and blah, blah, yadda, yadda…
… and the Steve became my new bestest friend ever. Steve said “No!” Steve said I have muscles! Steve said he can see delts and shoulder and muscle definition and whatnot! I LOVE STEVE! I do think the angle from the massage table is flattering. (I cranked my head sideways to look.) There did seem to be some curve to my arm! It no longer looked quite like PVC pipe covered in loose skin – at least not from that angle!
When done, my useless right arm and I went back to work and drank a latte and took ibuprofen. Dr. Jen cleared me for lat pulldowns and rows but NOT push-ups. In fact, she’d like DOUBLE pulldowns and rows… but NO PUSH-UPS. She will see me again Tuesday and re-evaluate.
Getting further behind in the challenge. Steve thinks I can catch up – because Steve is AWESOME.
