No more walking?
I'm in pain. I've been in pain for a while now, so long that it's hard to say when it started. A month ago? Two? Six?
The source of my pain is in my hip, I think. It's hard to tell, because the pain is also in my knee, thigh, even shoulder. Something is not working right on my right side. When I was a child, after years of complaining to my parents about being too tired to walk, and begging them to "carry me, carry me," an orthopedist diagnosed a misalignment in my hip that has a knock-on effect on the rest of my leg. If I'd been a baby when it was diagnosed, they probably would have put me in a half body cast to straighten out my still-maleable bones, but that would have engendered a whole different set of childhood traumas, so maybe it's just as well they didn't.
I called my mother for advice. Which doctor to go to? Podiatrist (it could be my relatively new orthotics)? Orthopedist (the problem could be structural)? Internist (maybe it's arthritis)?
Mom says internist, definitely, particularly since I said I was worried that it wasn't, in fact, a structural problem at all, but ovarian cancer, which has in its list of symptoms some of the same pain I've been experiencing.
My mother has never encouraged hypochondriasis in her children. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being "maybe I should get this gaping wound in my skull looked at next week," and 10 being "I lost an eyelash! I have eyelash cancer!", my mother is a 2. I, on the other hand, am a 6. Maybe 7.
So when mom didn't immediately say, "don't be ridiculous, you don't have ovarian cancer," but instead, "that's why you should go to your internist first, and tell her all your concerns," I was ready to book my room at Sloan Kettering.
She did, however, go on to say, "ovarian cancer is unheard of in our family, whereas the problem in your hip is well established," so I don't feel the end is necessarily near.
But it's clear that no matter what's wrong, I have to cut back on the 5-6 miles I walk every day, for now at least, and wear only sneakers. No more sexy high heels, which I'd been more willing lately to wear despite the pain. But then, I don't want to end up like Prince. The tiny 47-year-old purple dynamo recently announced that, after years of high heels and dancing, not to mention those crazy splits he does on stage, he needs a hip replacement.
walking
The source of my pain is in my hip, I think. It's hard to tell, because the pain is also in my knee, thigh, even shoulder. Something is not working right on my right side. When I was a child, after years of complaining to my parents about being too tired to walk, and begging them to "carry me, carry me," an orthopedist diagnosed a misalignment in my hip that has a knock-on effect on the rest of my leg. If I'd been a baby when it was diagnosed, they probably would have put me in a half body cast to straighten out my still-maleable bones, but that would have engendered a whole different set of childhood traumas, so maybe it's just as well they didn't.
I called my mother for advice. Which doctor to go to? Podiatrist (it could be my relatively new orthotics)? Orthopedist (the problem could be structural)? Internist (maybe it's arthritis)?
Mom says internist, definitely, particularly since I said I was worried that it wasn't, in fact, a structural problem at all, but ovarian cancer, which has in its list of symptoms some of the same pain I've been experiencing.
My mother has never encouraged hypochondriasis in her children. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being "maybe I should get this gaping wound in my skull looked at next week," and 10 being "I lost an eyelash! I have eyelash cancer!", my mother is a 2. I, on the other hand, am a 6. Maybe 7.
So when mom didn't immediately say, "don't be ridiculous, you don't have ovarian cancer," but instead, "that's why you should go to your internist first, and tell her all your concerns," I was ready to book my room at Sloan Kettering.
She did, however, go on to say, "ovarian cancer is unheard of in our family, whereas the problem in your hip is well established," so I don't feel the end is necessarily near.
But it's clear that no matter what's wrong, I have to cut back on the 5-6 miles I walk every day, for now at least, and wear only sneakers. No more sexy high heels, which I'd been more willing lately to wear despite the pain. But then, I don't want to end up like Prince. The tiny 47-year-old purple dynamo recently announced that, after years of high heels and dancing, not to mention those crazy splits he does on stage, he needs a hip replacement.
walking
posted by Excellent Walker at 4:30 PM
2 Comments:
You definitely don't have ovarian cancer. And even though your mom is a 2 (and you know my mother is too) I agree with her that there's no harm in putting a fear to rest and then popping off to the structural people later. And to the acupuncturist who if nothing else can make you feel all lovely and floopy.
Don't you have some of those negative shoes, you know, the ones that are supposed to make you feel up to striding for miles across the Serengeti?
Doctor's appointment is next week. But guess what? After two or more weeks of near-constant pain, today... nothing. Maybe just making the doctor's appointment scared me into health. But I'll keep wearing sneakers.
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