You know that fabulous class I was gushing over in my last post?
Yeah, Day Three fucked my back up. Or rather, my back, injured long long ago when I was twelve, decided it had had enough and wasn’t going to take it any more, and I wasn’t going to give yet another massage, I was just going to lie on the floor and cry for an hour.
That day? Also the first of my cycle. And the spasm came while I was trying to put on my pants, so I was on the floor wearing only a nursing tank and my bright red undies1. So, that was fun2.
On the other hand, if you’re going to have a great big physical and emotional break down, there are worse places to do it than a room full of nurturing women half of whom are doulas (some wonderfully radical) and all of whom are massage therapists or massage students.3
This has happened to me before4, and it will likely happen to me again, although I’m working on preventing it. But this has me thinking a lot about privilege5, and access to medical care, and sick days, and disability, and, oh, lots of things.
Like there’s this: since it happened, I’ve seen a massage therapist, a physical therapist, and the chiropractor twice. The latter two are almost entirely covered by my insurance, and the former offers me a student discount (which I can only be because I had good enough credit to have taken out a massive loan to cover my schooling — it’s really true that the more you make, the less you spend).
And there’s this: The Man took two days off, took a super long lunch to get me to an appointment the third day, and has a job that allows him to work from home once a week so he was around again to help me out today. He’s salaried, has abundant6 sick and vacation days, and is in a class of work that allows for flexible hours and minimum oversight.
And this: when I am not up to writing, when I am not up to taking out my own damn sponge, I can do nothing but sit around and pop NSAIDs and ice my back and go to body work appointments and bitch about #backpocalypse2010 on Twitter. I lose some readers and some momentum, I miss a week of The Boychick’s Bookshelf and am five days late on a monthly menstrual post7: I do not lose my job, I do not worry about paying my rent, I do not grit my teeth and soldier through and further damage myself to avoid those things.
And then there’s how hard it is to ask for help, the socially imposed conditioning to apologize for being hurt8 that I’ve struggled with, the allowances I am given because this is presumed to be temporary, the language used to describe the incapacity9 that is today only for me and every day for others, the suggestions that it’s my own fault for not taking better care of myself, the voices10 saying that if I’m so damaged what am I doing trying to be a massage therapist… there’s rather more going on than I can identify, much less analyze. Especially as the ice pack melts and my hips start tingling and my back starts twitching and my bed starts calling — loudly, in the form of snores from my child and texts from my lover.
But I haven’t forgotten you11, and soon I’ll be back with another Boychick’s Bookshelf (and there may be a collaboration there to announce soon — stay tuned!), and a review of Flow
- And, I was trying out my new menstrual sponge for the first time, and when I got home couldn’t even wipe myself much less reach it, so The Man had to go sponge spelunking for me, and apparently it’s not exactly easy to get out, especially when it’s been in for rather longer than it was supposed to’ve because I collapsed on the floor and had other things on my mind. ↩
- This is sarcasm. ↩
- I’d still recommend just not doing it, though. ↩
- The spasm, not the perfect storm of spasm, pregnancy massage class, and Day One menstrual sucktastitude, and dear Goddess can that please be a once-in-a-lifetime event? ↩
- Raise your hand if you’re surprised. ↩
- Comparatively, for the US of A. ↩
- Am. Not. Pregnant. ↩
- Seriously, how fucked up is that? How many men do you know who apologize for hurting? At worst, I’ve heard guys say that they let down the team if they’re injured and pulled off the field, and men surely have to contend with a culture that says they’re only valued for what they can do/how much money they can earn — but to fall to their knees and have the second words to come out of their mouth (after “FUCK!”, of course) be I’m sorry?? We women have got to rid ourselves of this idea that we’re supposed to apologize for existing. ↩
- See, that’s problematic language. ↩
- Mostly in my own head, admittedly. ↩
- Or my beautiful FD Footnotes, how I love and overuse thee. ↩
- And less annotated. ↩
Apparently oddly, my male partner constantly apologizes when he’s sick. He apologizes for being “such bad company”; for asking me for basic nurturing that A)I am more than happy to give once I know it’s needed (I’m really bad at the nurturing thing, it doesn’t come naturally to me at all) and B)he typically gives me without my asking; for being too warm next to me in bed when he’s got a fever, or coughing too much, or whatever way his illness is expressing itself that he thinks is inconveniencing me. I must have been raised with some counter-culture messages I didn’t notice, cos when I don’t feel well, I fully expect the entire fraking world to stop and accommodate me, and I feel utterly unapologetic about it. I’ve never been able to really gut level understand people who feel bad about being sick (except maybe when they’re sick cos of something obvious they did and easily could have avoided.) I intellectually understand it, I think, it’s a whole society telling us that we’re not supposed to demand attention, we should be self sufficient thing.
Of course, there are lots of other arenas of life where I catch myself apologizing for existing, most especially when I need the attention of someone in a retail setting. Goddess help me if the barista gives me an incorrect drink and then is too busy helping other people to hear my polite volume “excuse me”. I’ll be there all day! (I won’t drink the wrong drink tho!) And of course once I do get zir attention, the first words out of my mouth will be ‘I’m sorry’, followed by ‘but this is the wrong whatever’. I dunno why I have such a problem with asserting myself in settings where someone is being paid to assist me. Maybe cos I just take as given that their job sucks, and I don’t want to make it worse? I dunno.
…The preceding babble has been brought to you by sleeplessness.
Ouch, sounds like no fun at all! I’m sending you lots of well wishes and feel better, you know, vibes or something!
Ugh! Hope you feel better.
I have a shoulder injury from a car accident and the two things that help the most (massage therapy and chiropractic adjustment) are NOT covered by my insurance while physical therapy (which has been a huge waste of time) is covered. I can’t even try acupuncture because it is prohibitively expensive despite the fact that my doctor (an allopathic doctor in favor of TCM!) recommends it. The kicker? My insurance company (and thus all of us) pay MORE for treating my injury in traditional ways when alternative would be 1/2 the cost (to the insurance company at least) and twice the effect.
On a less annoyed note the Cleveland Clinic has free massage therapy for their surgery patients and I think this is wonderful and progressive. When my mom went in for thyroid surgery she looked like a jittery deer in headlights until she got the massage. It was better than morphine. I swear she was floating afterwards and not worried at all about the surgery.
I get monthly massages and I’m often treated (by my doctor, friends, “others”) as if this is a luxury. It is luxurious but the benefits (physical and emotional) are much greater than a “vanity” luxury purchase. Human touch is so important and I wish every socioeconomic stratum could experience it.
I puffy heart FD Footnotes :)
There really are so many complex issues at play.
All the same, I just really hope you’re feeling better, soon. Because being in pain is no fun, no matter how you slice it.
Ooog. I hope you feel better soon!
I can finally comment now that I’m not pinned on the couch under a sick, sleeping toddler with nothing but the phone to connect to the interwebz. What’s up with the mobile version of this page not having a comment option?
While my partner definitely gets the Man Flu and does not apologize for it, I do identify a bit with Hel. When I’m sick, I’m sick … I don’t tend to apologize for it. In fact, I kick up a huge, immature fuss about it most times. :) But, like her, I find myself apologizing for my existence in other aspects of life. Humans … we’re an odd bunch (resisting an urge to make a stupid ape comment here … ;)).
Now, after that rambling nonsense of a comment, I will close with: I hope you feel better soon. *hugs*
Kareena — you CAN comment from the mobile site, but you have to go to the last mobile page, and then click on the bottom “Leave A Comment” bar, not the “link” that says 0 (or 4, or whatever) comments.
It’s annoying, but I swear it does work.
For the rest, it’s good to hear from women whose experiences of illness are different. It’d be interesting to try to tease out whether those are exclusively personality differences, or partly cultural, or what.
And thanks. I am on the mend, but it’s frustrating how long it takes to get back to “normal”. I was doing a lot better today, and then tried to sit on the floor to play with the Boychick, and that was, shall we say, an unwise idea. Though I was at least able to get back off the floor, so you know I’m healing!
It should go without saying that I am a technological idiot, btw. The option was probably glaringly obvious but I still missed it. :)
Pingback: Are You a Girl or a Boy? « The Ausmerican
Pingback: Sea Pearls (menstrual sponges): a review « Raising My Boychick
Pingback: Pregnancy Massage I, take 2: in which I beg for woo and e-support « Raising My Boychick
Pingback: I quit the world today « Raising My Boychick
Pingback: On the moral obligation to be healthy | Raising My Boychick