I have a pain in my butt – literally. It’s been there for a week now.
Last Sunday, I went for a walk after a nice refreshing sleep-in overdue from that previous week of restless nights. I felt so great, after a couple hours I went for another walk. During the second walk, my butt felt a little sore. “This is great!” I thought, “I don’t usually feel much in my butt! I’m working my butt off so well, and now I’ve got some sensation of soreness after a good workout!”
Monday when I woke up, the soreness had increased. By Tuesday it was pain. Cindy came by to walk with me in the morning, but I was hardly able to stand on the left foot without pain. After stretching the ankle and calf for a bit, she recommended taking it easy and talking to my therapist about it in the afternoon. Margot spent our appointment time working on a knotted portion of muscle on the left side gluteus maximus as well as working to relax the tension radiating down the leg into my foot.
I left therapy considerably better but with a caution from my physio not to push myself so hard. “Next time you want to increase your walking, do it in increments instead of doubling it,” she cautioned. I’ve spent the rest of the week taking it easy and feeling the pain steadily decrease though not yet disappear. On Friday, Anja spent more time massaging and stretching my left leg to ease the lingering pain in my butt. I’m still not back to my pre-pain level of activity, but I’m hoping to ease into my walking next week and continue to move forward.
This recovery has been long and hard. I was talking with Carol on Tuesday about how I’ve been working my butt off for over two and a half years, and I still have a long way to go. Not every single day has seen big gains, and there have been a number of set backs. This pain in the butt is a set back. The accompanying nerve damage messes that I had to clean up this week are frustrating as well. I’d like for there to be an easy fix, but there isn’t. Life is complex and messy and involves pains in the butt (both literal and metaphorical in my case). I covet your prayers for the pain to dissipate so that I can return to working my butt off with walking and standing.
