Dealing with an ongoing injury

I've been hula dancing for years and turned to take a step backwards as a precursor to changing lines from the front row to the back row. In that dance, you take a big step backwards and two small steps. Then pivot and step backwards to the other side to finish the transition.

Except this time I felt like my hip collapsed and was going to dump me on the ground. It didn't but it felt like it. I finished dance class without doing that move again, walked to the car and drove home. It hurt but was manageable. It hurt more that night, the next day, and developed to be exquisitely painful--sleep and driving were out of the question. I felt that most of my pain was muscular and involved all of the muscles that support the hip area including the piriformis and tensor fasciae latae.

Days later I finally asked for a ride to urgent care (It hurt too much to drive by then) and x-ray results showed that that hip was bone on bone. I went home and looked up hip arthritis and discovered my symptoms didn't match the classic description. I've come to my own conclusion that there's more than one thing going on.

Time has marched on and I have a MRI of that hip, one of my spine (in case I have referred pain from there) and I've been collecting doctors like they are charms on a bracelet.

I'm not a candidate for most standard NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) and steroids didn't do much. So I'm in pain. I'm trying a different drug being used off label which takes a few weeks to take effect. I'm learning you can be in a lot more pain than you thought you could tolerate and still be functional.

And so I've been limping along waiting for the next appointment, watching what I eat, getting in the pool almost daily, going to chair yoga, taking a semi-private Pilates reformer class, getting acupuncture, paying out of pocket for massages, and waiting. I'm working on patience and also working on finding fun and joy in my life during this time because life goes on whether I'm in pain or not.

Speaking of finding fun and joy, we saw a delightful play recently and we regularly go look at the ocean. Our garden looks beautiful. The volunteer sunflower supervises my visits into the backyard and shines its face on me. The hummers battle over the feeder and zip about reminding me to enjoy life.

I'm grateful for my wonderful spouse and for our pets. My friends have also been extremely supportive and I'm grateful for each one of them. They visit me and provide companionship. Some of them help with tasks around the house, make tasty nutritious foods, give me rides to the pool, and rides to hula. At hula, I sit in the back of class and wave my arms about and enjoy the hula ohana. (And keep the choreography in my head.)

At some point the wait for surgery will be over and I'll be in the recovery phase. That will be a future post.