After nearly three weeks, I have returned to yoga. That is, I have successfully attended two consecutive classes and have plans to get back into my regular routine. But I am sore, sore like I was when it all began, which is exactly what happens when you stop attending yoga class for any length of time. You lose your gains.
It was pleurisy that prevented me from attending class for three weeks. I imagine that different people experience pleurisy in different ways. For me, it involved a stabbing pain in my chest with every inhalation, right around the place where I think my heart is located. At first, and for several days, I thought it was some kind of weird pinched nerve, because the pain radiated outward the way nerve pain does. I was confident I was not having a heart attack but after two weeks, I began to wonder if my heart was infected in some strange way. I have never experienced anything like pleurisy before. The pain was unrelenting, and culminated in the third week in a drowning sensation that kept me from being able to sleep lying down. I was stubborn for far too long in refusing to seek medical attention. I did, however, spend some time researching "Right to Die" legislation in case I did not start to feel better soon. Fortunately, eventually, I did.
Throughout this ordeal I only took one day off work, and thought I was quite tough for doing so until I remembered that BB is working full time through chemotherapy. There are a number of ways in the world a person can be stupid. Or brave. I have chosen to go back to yoga now that my strength and stupidity have fully returned to me.
*
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Any new or returned-to exercise is humbling.
Pleurisy seems so 18th century to me. Glad you're on the mend.
Thanks. I'd never heard of pleurisy until I contracted it - maybe I'm the only case since the 18th century?
Post a Comment