One thing my mother does that irritates me is endlessly complaining about her various injuries/pains. Not the complaining in and of itself because I know how wearing chronic issues can be. No, the annoying part is that a lot of it is self-inflicted. My mother is a very busy person and refuses to cut down on anything. Plus she’s an anxious person who is constantly looking for something that’s going wrong and is ruled by her anxiety. I get the latter thing because I’m like that, too. The only difference is that I keep it mostly to myself whereas she emotionally vomits all over about it to me.
She’ll tell me about this or that injury and most of the time, it’s because she’s trying to do five things at once, her anxiety makes her radically change what she was about to do, or she’s rushing from one place to another. I tried to tell her Master Liang’s mantra of ‘no hurry, no worry’ and how it was better to do something slowly and with intention (and it actually saved time in the long run). I could empathize with her because I tend to try to do ten things at one time, especially if it’s carrying things from one area to another. I have several burns because of this as I tried to carry my coffee/tea mug in the crook of my elbow. It’s a travel mug, yes, but there’s still an opening so I can drink from it.
The next time I talked to my mom, she proudly announced that she and my father had modified the saying to ‘no hurry, no going too slow.’ I didn’t say anything, but I rolled my eyes at her. Don’t worry, she couldn’t see because we were talking on the phone. That completely missed the point of the saying, but I knew why she did it. It was her fear of not getting everything done, of missing something important, and of being lazy. She’s driven to be the one to count on and in doing everything. I understand that. But, what I was trying to drive home to her was that if you took your time and did something properly the first time, you actually saved time in the long run. And pain.
I know it’s difficult to believe because it seems counterintuitive. How can slowing down improve your productivity? Well, you’re less likely to make mistakes and your work will be better for one. In my example of burning myself, I could make two trips from the kitchen to the living room and not burn myself or constantly juggle things or feel as if something was going to fall the entire time rather than make one stressful trip. That’s another bonus to doing things slowly–less stress. I’m not talking about the voice in the back of your brain yelling at you to hurry because that voice will be there regardless of whether you go fast or slow. That’s the thing about anxiety–nothing mollifies it because there’s always something to be anxious about.
Anyway. All of this is to say that despite the title of this post, I am my mother’s daughter about this kind of thing because I have witnessed it all my life and have absorbed it into my being at some point. My mom suffered from pain in her middle area for a year before finally making a doctor appointment. It was gallstones. She made an appointment for surgery (or whatever) and before it came, she woke me in excruciating pain and I had to drive her to the ER. The gallstones were some of the biggest the doctor had ever seen and he said if my mom hadn’t come in when she did, well, she might not have survived.
I find myself copying her in terms of not going to the doctor unless I absolutely have to. In part it’s because I’ve had really bad experiences with doctors, but it’s also because for the most part, besides my thyroid issue, most of the other things I’ve dealt with have not had any solution to them. The food issues, my last doc said I’d have to start eating gluten again in order to test for that. While I might do that at some point, it feels like deliberately poisoning myself.
Anyway. Whenever something medical-related comes up, my first impulse is to deal with it myself. Especially in the year of our lord, pandemic, and with a new doctor to boot. I had one phone call with my new doc, but otherwise, only emails. Which is fine with me.
When my thumb started popping and locking, I didn’t pay much attention to it because it was so infrequent. Then, one day, it escalated quickly to the point of not being able to bend my thumb without pushing on it I’ve been wearing a sprint on it for a week or so, only taking it off to exercise it or if I’m not on the computer. While I’m doing taiji as well, of course. I do stretches on it every day and I just ordered a bunch of heat/cold therapy stuff for it because I want it to get better. I’m pretty sure it’s rheumatoid arthritis, but I’m not ruling out tendonitis. Have I talked to a doctor about it yet? No. Will I? If it doesn’t get better in a week or so.
Speaking of getting better. It has. Appreciably. But it also ebbs and flows throughout the day. It’s super-stiff when I wake up even though I wear the splint to sleep. Then, I take it off to do taiji. Then I put it back on while I type. I’ll take it off to do my stretches. Then, about fifteen minutes after I take the splint off, I can move my thumb again with just the barest of clicks. It happens suddenly, like everything miraculously gets better. Then, slowly, it starts to stiffen again. I can still move my thumb on its own, but the clicking gets harsher and deeper for lack of a better word. Then, at a certain point, it’s back to being swollen and difficult to bend without pushing on it. Normally, this loop is about fifteen minutes.
Yesterday, it lasted much longer. Like, more than an hour long. I was heartened and thought maybe….so like a dumbass, I left my splint off last night as I slept. This is where the similarity to my mother creeps in. It’s getting better, thinks I! That means go back to a hundo, right? A few days ago, I was typing without the splint and I mentioned to Ian that it was funny because I would hit the space bar with both thumbs. I was only doing it to give my thumb a chance to breathe, but he typed back in alarm to be careful and not push it. He was right. I was pushing it even though it wasn’t on purpose because I was getting tired of being good.
Anyway, I woke up this morning and my thumb hurt. Like, hurt with even the slightest pressure. So, yeah, not putting the splint on while sleeping was not a good idea. I put it on immediately, only taking it off to do my taiji, and now I have it back on again. Oh, my taiji teacher told me to teach myself the left side of the Sword Form as a way to gently stretch out my left hand/wrist, which I’m into. I taught it to myself a while ago, but I haven’t practiced it recently. I’m about a quarter of the way into it with three days of practice. I actually found teaching myself the left side of the Sword Form much easier than teaching myself the left side of the Solo Form, probably because I like the Sword Form better in general.
It’s better now, but still sore. This is teaching me to be patient because I don’t want any more setbacks. Hopefully, in a week, I can report significant progress again. I’m already happy with how much better I’m doing and cannot wait for the day when I am splint-free once again.