On Saturday we went with my little brother, Bobby and his family on our annual trip to the pumpkin patch. I look forward to this every year. It’s fun, the five boy cousins get to play together, we are outside in the beautiful sunshine and we are making memories. I like looking back through my scrapbooks and seeing how much the boys have changed each year.
We went to a new pumpkin patch this year as our usual one didn’t get a good crop of pumpkins. At our usual pumpkin patch, we actually went in to the fields and cut our own pumpkins off the vine. We liked the adventure of exploration and finding the biggest pumpkin!
This new pumpkin patch had a lot of cool stuff for the kids: petting zoo, hay rides, playground, little tractors to ride, bunnies to pet and chickens to chase. The kids had a great time going from one activity to the next.
I, on the other hand, was in quite a bit of pain. My back, hip and pelvic floor were really bothering me. I wasn’t able to enjoy the day as much as I had hoped. I finally found a random chair and pulled it over in to the shade. I just needed to rest for a bit. Cort came over and climbed on a large swing hanging from the tree I was shaded by. I took several deep breaths and mentally tried to work the pain out of my body. After a bit of rest, I felt better but the deep ache in my hip and back still nagged at me.
I am thankful, at the present, that my pain is not so debilitating that I can’t do things with my family. It is upsetting that I have no control over when my pain flairs up no matter what I do to help my body feel better. I get so mad at this body. I feel trapped in it. My mind wants to go and do things, be active, feel young, but my body has other plans. I have learned over the past decade to listen to my body more. I have learned not to push it when it is yelling at me to stop and rest. I still struggle with stopping before a job is finished or in the middle of an event to lay down.
Sometimes it is embarrassing to just disappear and lay down. Or to start stretching in public to bring the pain down. I’m not as self-conscious about it as I used to be in the past. No matter where I am I may bend at the hips to stretch out my back or cross my leg over my other knee to stretch out my glute. I may suddenly start doing what looks like yoga. It is all a way to cope with the pain. If I can get a muscle looser around an inflamed nerve then maybe my pain will be more bearable. I’m sure people who are around me a lot, but don’t know my story, wonder why I do random stretches all the time. Or spread my legs and bend over while I’m on my phone. This is my life. Like it or not. Welcome to it!