And then it began.

It is strange to think that one day I was in no pain and the next I was. Probably my memory is fooling me and the pain had actually been there some days before and others it had not. But I know one thing for a fact, that one day the pain appeared and now it is still there.

First, when I felt the subtle sting in my back I thought little of it. As before, when I had faced neck or back pain, I merely added some yoga and stretches into my daily routine. This time was no different. I added 5-10min per day to my usual exercise routine guessing the pain would gradually get smaller until it disappeared. It had always done so up to this point. Why would this instance be any different? After ~2weeks of consistent stretching the pain was still there, consistent as ever, so I booked an appointment with my physician.

3 weeks of consistent, dull pain, and I was still not particularly worried, nor thought this was something other than trivial to fix. I thought I just did not have the tools to fix it myself. Getting a doctor to look at me would solidify my suspicions that this was something minor, a structural issue that specific physical therapy would make better. Aside from getting a diagnosis I wanted a doctor to write me a note for a physical therapist that could teach me how to get rid of the pain.

This is exactly what happened when I met my doctor.

Following that visit I started seeing a physical therapist. He was not very good. At least I did not think he was good. He mostly relied on tools at his office and some minor exercises for me to do at home to strengthen the area around my shoulder and upper back. “Do these. If you do not have an elastic band like this at home, you can instead just lay on your side on a bench or sofa, at home or at a party, and lift a full, or half empty, can of beer.” This is a quote from him I remember most fondly from those sessions. He did not help me much. Nothing he did made me even slightly better. I would even go so far as to say the pain got consistently worse each following day after seeing him. I stopped going to the appointments after 1-2months of 2-3 weekly sessions.

~3 months of daily back pain, and at this point I was starting to feel the burden of it in my behaviour and excitement for life. A hint of depression caused by the constant aching was beginning to take its toll on my mind. The pain started to overcome my life. I stopped showing up at classes in university. I stopped going out and meeting people. Although, I kept studying and programming at home. At my desk. My life was spent sitting. Thinking and over-analysing. Pitying myself and feeling bad. Making the pain worse each day. I stopped exercising and met friends less and less. Instead, I kept to my home, studying maths on my own and trying to program something, some app, that would change my life. Make everything good again. Create something that would make all this suffering worth it. I created some stuff and made some things people used but I was not happy with any of it. Sinking myself into trying to create something big so I would feel better. Working at it 14+ hours every day. It did not work. I just felt worse.

Thinking about those times now, I was pretty miserable.

One day you are ‘normal’, happy, then suddenly and without warning everything changes. That is life. There is nothing inherently bad about it. Your experience is all dependent upon how you think about it. How you feel it. How you act.

It's been a long recovery... You can't mourn for how you used to feel... You have to come to terms with it.

George Clooney

Until next week.

🐢