Pain in the Neck

Have you seen the Celebrex ad? “Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion?” This week my body hit a bump in the road. With the fear of gym overcrowding hanging over my head, I had stopped going to the gym in the morning. I was going every day at 1:40 p.m. (no one there at that time!) and doing 45 or 50 minutes or intense cardio. My goal was to reach 5 miles every time I set foot in the gym. Because of the time constraints of leaving the office in the middle of the day, I had stopped doing my physical therapy and stretching routine. I don’t know if the lack of stretching or Murphy’s law is what set off this problem in my upper back and neck.

On Thursday, I ran into the bathroom just before we left to attend the Surgeon General’s “Call to Action on Breastfeeding”. I was pulling up my pants when I got a sudden stabbing, throbbing “don’t move” horrible pain in my neck. It felt as if it were some sort of muscular spasm. I took my Ultram but to no avail. The pain was still there an hour later as we rolled into the George Washington University auditorium. It must have been bad because all four of my colleagues said the same thing when I walked in: “Are you okay?”

Yes, I was okay…no I really wasn’t. I ran into and out of the auditorium. That Amanda Bookmark was right. There was no signal in the auditorium, which made Tweeting out the messages impossible. I had to go outside and Tweet what I was hearing on the webcast. After the event was over, we went back to the office but I couldn’t leave. Dr. M was supposed to come and give an in-service on the Affordable Care Act. Of course, since it was evident that this was just NOT MY DAY, she couldn’t find us and was half an hour late, which meant that she didn’t finish her presentation in time for me to go see Dr. Kim the acupuncture specialist.

That night, my Darling Spouse gave me a massage….and every night since then. I’ve been doing my stationary bike and physical therapy exercises slow…ly….. religious…ly I don’t want to sustain this sort of injury again.