Be Careful What You Put in the Universe

by Angela Sanford

It's my last March break and as I walked out the school doors last Friday afternoon another teacher brought me this realization.

I headed into the break with great anticipation: some relaxing, some reading, some time with friends, and, generally, a few chores that needed to be done around the house. However, the week has been less than liberating.

The first weekend started with a little bit of tension in my back, as a result of a chore started before the break, but by the end of the weekend - yes, due to a poor decision to go bowling on Sunday afternoon - my back had inflamed to limited mobility and a throbbing pain.

I booked a massage for Monday afternoon and after spending an hour and a half with the masseuse, I began to question whether it was tension in my back or if it might be a kidney issue. Sure, I had a couple of the symptoms for a kidney infection, which was just enough to make me second guess what was going on so off to the Hants Community Hospital we went.

I waddled to triage and was the first contestant into the ER upon completing triage do a very short wait. However, the doctor's diagnosis was a pulled muscle, thankfully, and his prescription was to take it easy: do some light stretching but don't overdo it. Fine, I could do that.

The next day I did some measured walking, slow and steady save for the occasional ping of pain when I made a quick motion to twist my body but, overall, a much better day. I got up on Wednesday with the plan to spend the day at Sunsea Spa, in Chester, with a friend and after the first couple of hot tubs and sauna I was feeling amazing.  Absolutely amazing - as the day went on I was starting to walk with my normal gait, had hardly felt a twinge of pain at any point from lunchtime onward.  I easily sat into the seat of my car to return home at the end of our day. It was when I pulled into the driveway at my own hose that I realized it might have been a false bravado.

The agony had returned, though in a different location this time, no longer was it in the lower back beside my left kidney; now, it was more in my left hip.  My gait  was even slower, slower than it had been all week and I came to rest on my sofa for the evening doing very little.

Dan and I made the short saunter to Wyatt's mid evening, and it was the longest walk I'd had all week, but it felt better than sitting. We returned home and I was faced with another sleepless night. Every shift of my body sent pain into my hip. Getting out of bed on Thursday morning was a very slow, methodical process as I moved cautiously from the bedroom to the bathroom, to the kitchen where I sat down to have a coffee.

I took a phone call from Mum shortly after settling into my seat and midway through the call a shot of pain went through my left muscle so severe that I literally threw my phone across the kitchen and was yelling at mom to give me a moment until I could get my phone picked up.  I slid from my seat to the floor, picked up my phone, and finished my conversation with Mum. Then, I texted Dan to say, “Ha. Ha. I'm stuck on the floor.”

I should never have put those words out into the universe because once they were out they were true. It took me 35 minutes and several attempts, along with tears, wails of pain and profanity, to finally resurrect my body from its location on the floor.  At one point, I almost said, “Forget it – the floor is where I’m staying!”

Fortunately, I did finally get myself off the floor and back to ER and the very kind Dr. Rowe provided me with both a muscle relaxant and a pian killer – which worked VERY well – now to spend the rest of my break “relaxing” on the sofa, dozing in and out.  And so, as it turns out, my final March Break didn’t look like freedom at all — it looked like stillness. Not the kind I had planned, but perhaps the kind I needed.

There’s a certain irony in spending years racing toward a break, only to be forced into one by your own body. No agenda, no productivity, no “just one more thing” — just rest, whether I liked it or not.

Maybe that’s the lesson I’ll carry out those school doors for the last time: that rest isn’t something to earn at the point of exhaustion, and it’s certainly not something to negotiate with. It arrives when it must, sometimes gently… and sometimes by dropping you flat on the kitchen floor.

Either way, message received.

Next time, I’ll try to listen sooner.