Chicken pox kept me away from
school for a month. I was only 6 then and I remember hating it. I'd always been
a healthy kid. It felt like I was being punished for never having fallen sick
and I was making up for the all earlier years in one shot. I hated missing school
more than anything else.
Decades later, the chicken pox
had relegated to dark corners of my mind. While I sympathized with others who
fell sick or got injured, I stayed away from anything remotely requiring
medical attention. How I managed it is beyond me but I took it for granted. I
had abused my body with junk food, no food, erratic workouts for years and all
I needed to fix myself up was 2 days in bed, recharging. It is amazing how self-healing
the human body is.
Cut to 2012.
It all started with a back-ache
that I ignored for as long as I could. It was just sleeping on the couch. Or
maybe the bad posture at work. It was going to be fine. I just needed to stop
doing those things. I would. It went on this way until I landed flat on my
back, on the carpet one fine Sunday morning, unable to perform normal physical
activities like getting up, sitting or standing without my back complaining.
With much reluctance and driven by panic, I saw a doctor. "Weak
muscles", he rued. He was happy to prescribe medicines but I brushed it
off saying I wouldn't do it if I didn't have to. He wrote me a letter to get a
core strength assessment by a physio and handed me a sheet detailing some
stretches I could do, to strengthen the lower back muscles.
Once I started the stretches and
the back was beginning to feel OK, I forgot all about the doctor and his physio
recommendation. I ignored the niggly sensation in my knees for weeks and waved
off the protests during my Krav Maga kicks. I continued to ignore it even after
I started to feel like I was going to buckle whenever I walked. I should have
at least hooked up to the internet to see if it needed attention but I didn't.
I was in denial. It was going to be ok. That was until I carried a heavy bag
and walked for about 3 kilometres one evening, while on holidays. Soon, the
happy vacation turned into a series of stretches, ice-packs, ultrasound and I
was pretty much under house-arrest.
By now I had been suffering all
sorts of aches for 2 months and I was aware of my weak muscles. The least I
could offer my body was a little rest. For someone who has mis-treated the body
for over 30 years, it was a concept hard to grasp. Two weeks into the
treatment, throwing all caution to the wind, I headed back overseas and started
work. Over the next 2 weeks, I was brought down by my knees once again. It was
back to square one. Ice-packs, taped knees, ultrasound, rest. The works. Serves
me right for not doing the "rest" thing the first time around. Lesson
learned. Right?
I'm just back from another
horribly expensive physio session (that my insurance barely covers) and feeling
better. All thanks to the massage, ultra-sound and knee-taping (ugh) by my Kiwi
physio, who told me she had her first physio appointment at the age of 8. The
restlessness that comes with feeling slightly more mobile is back. I want to be
out and about, doing all the things I would normally be doing. The only thing
that is stopping me from caving in, is knowing how crippled I have been over
the weekend... after I had started to walk a little just the week before.
The chicken pox phase jumps to
the forefront, from the dark hollows of my mind. It's like a headless villain
stepping out of the shadows, in a long black cape. Yet again, is this life
making me pay for the score and something years of good health I have had? It's
been over 3 months since the first signs of the weak muscles appeared and
started giving me grief. I can't wait to feel "normal" again!
I feel exactly like I did when I
was 6 years old. I was forced to stay in the bedroom so I would not spread the
germs around, only being allowed to get out if I needed to use the bathroom.
Mum brought me food and water but I was kept away from the outside world. This
time, I'm older and the room is a house, but the feeling is all the same. I am
counting down minutes to get back to the outside world... to run and to
dance... to kick some groin in Krav class... and to grab that elusive P3
patch... and do all those crazy things on my list...
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