Twists and turns and tears.

I went to bed really early last night, but awoke several times with my hip bothering me. I was up, and the kids slept really late, and I found myself with too much time on my hands, and turned to the dread Dr Google. I found myself googling my worst fears.....because Monday had been 6 weeks, and I still am very dependent on my one crutch, yet had set some hopeful (and perhaps stupidly unrealistic) goal of being crutch free by that point. I was googling terms like AVN, and non union. Terms which would lead to another painful surgery, long recovery, and a prosthetic femoral neck implant. Terms which are very much not out of the realm of possibility. My search both terrified me and gave me hope. The terms and the reality of those terms are frightening, and if I have to face them my initial instinct is to feel like "I just can't do it". I feel like I simply can't live through this process again any time soon. The reality of course is that if I have to, I will, as there would be no choice, but my entire being is screaming NO, PLEASE GOD NO. I don't want to do it. I don't feel strong enough. I don't feel equipped to face this again. The searches also gave me hope, as I came to find that most people who undergo hip pinning (athletes, this is) are NOT off of crutches in 6 weeks. In forums where people were talking about recovering from this surgery I found 8-12 weeks to be a much more common time frame, and those people had full, normal, recoveries. That gave me hope.

I went to yoga again this morning. On the mat is much like in the water, I generally feel more capable and more free than I do when trying to walk around. My movements feel freer, more fluid, stronger. I can rely more on my upper body strength, my core strength, and adapt my practice around my weak areas. I'm learning quickly how to adapt any pose to account for my weaknesses, which of course is anything relying on 100% or even 75% weight load on my right leg. Whether it means going to a knee, or what, I can generally continue my practice fluidly. Today, however, I started thinking about what an imbalance this must be creating in my body. I started to think about how much stronger my left leg must be getting, how much stronger my left arm must be getting as it is the one using the crutch all day long. I started thinking about how when I don't use my crutch, and limp, I am creating weird muscle imbalance not only along my entire left leg, but up my entire spine and glutes. I started thinking that I am going to need rehab, simply to undo the collateral damage that all of this protecting of my injury is surely causing. I was acutely aware of this today in my practice, and it was distracting and troubling to me. Somehow in the 5 or 6 classes I have done, today was the first time we went into pigeon pose. And as I tried to finagle my right leg into some safe semblance of pigeon, I got teary. And when our teacher said "I know you runners just LOVE this one" sarcastically, tears sprung to my eyes. Because this was traditionally a pose that frustrated me, as a runner, with my tight hips and IT band. And today, just trying to find some safe impression of pigeon, I felt insanely jealous of my old pigeon. My old, imperfect, slightly tight, but whole, unscary old pigeon. Not this new, geriatric, slightly frightened pigeon. I used to call the very hardcore people, the bendy look at me look at me look at me yoga people the "yoga winners". You know, the ones who take a bind when no one else is, then glance around the room making sure that everyone is noticing? And I think that I so took my practice for granted. I never bothered to notice what anyone else was doing, but I very much took for granted that my body could twist and turn and safely and freely enact any pose that I asked of it, be it one of strength, one of balance, or one of flexibility. And now, in this new body, in this new, guarded yoga practice, I very much  appreciate what I can do......but today was my first day of feeling frustrated with what I very much can't do, at the moment. And I felt jealous. NOT jealous of anyone else, just jealous of the ease of my old familiar body, and the wonderful 36 years that I had with it........and I missed it. This new stranger body, the one that makes me think so much before entering so many poses, is still so foreign to me. I know that I will get to know and understand and love it....and I know that in time it will be back to its old self.....but today as I had to put a towel to my face to hide my tears in stupid pigeon, none of that mattered. As if she was speaking directly to me (though there were a good 45 of us in the class) our instructor started talking about being here......not in yesterday, not in tomorrow, just here, in our bodies, in our practice, and being here in gratitude......and I really had to just hang my head and cry. Because I don't WANT to be missing my old body.....I want to be there, in my semi fragile, very modified, carefully considered practice, and I want to feel nothing but gratitude for it, and to remember where I was 4 weeks ago, drugged to the hilt and in bed.....but I would be lying if I told you that it was easy.

So. After making lunches with the kids, I went food shopping. I was in so much pain that I literally had to squat down and catch my breath as I felt nauseous half way through the store. I got teary at the check out. I got home as fast as I could, and thankfully Brooke helped me put everything away as all of the kids were sleeping. I jumped in the shower and met Jeannie at Starbucks. As I got dressed I realized my hip felt fine, totally fine. We went and got really fantastic massages together, and tonight as I was getting the kids to bed I was walking around upstairs with almost no limp, and no pain. This injury is so frustrating. How can I go from kneeling in the middle of a grocery store (with my crutch!) in complete pain, to walking without it almost limp free for short distances a few hours later? I just don't understand it.

The mental aspect of this up and down recovery is terribly hard on me. Tomorrow is a big day as I have x-rays at 1. I'm hoping for good news, or at least not bad news....I don't really know what they can show me at this point. I'm hitting the pool in the morning in hopes that the mindlessness of nothing but breath, bubbles, and that thick black line on the bottom of the pool can ease my troubled mind and relax me before my appointment. Yoga is teaching me a lot about accepting being right where I am, about what it like to be standing tall in my warrior instead of sinking deeply into it.....but that sometimes a warrior stands tall because that is the best a warrior can do. The only winning in yoga is in loving yourself and your practice exactly where you are.....and I think that that might include some tears sometimes. Tears aren' always bad, I suppose. And when I finally found a safe and comfortable angle for my hip in pigeon and sunk into it, I smiled. So I guess the pigeon wasn't so stupid after all.