NotSoZen YogaJen

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I’ve had injuries before where I couldn’t do yoga. There was my back pain, my tweaked out arms and neck, and my broken toe. But none of these things seemed that serious, and the most I’ve ever had to stay away from yoga was a little over a month.

This is worse.

In September, my right hip and leg started hurting after a restorative yoga class. This class consisted of lounging around for long periods of time, propped up on various bolsters and blocks, so it was baffling how I got hurt during it. I meditate daily, and after this class I noticed that it started to hurt to sit cross-legged in meditation, so I took a short break from yoga and mediating, and then went back to both after about a week.

Over the next few months, several things happened to make my injury worse:

• One Saturday night in November, I double booked myself and made two plans. I was tired and cranky and couldn’t decide which plan I wanted to do, so I canceled one, and then I changed my mind and canceled the other one, and then I tried to get my first plan back but it was too late. So I wound up home alone with no plans, and in frustration I plunked down hard on my wooden kitchen chair. I felt something snap in my right hip, and it hurt. Then I had canned soup for dinner. That night sucked. The next day the pain was still bad, and I was limping. I was so mad at myself! If only I’d gone out for one of my plans! If only I hadn’t been so cranky! If only I hadn’t plunked so hard! And I took a break from yoga and meditating again.
• In December, I was showing off — not warmed up at all — how I could touch my toes. I made it half-way there when I felt pain in my right leg, and again, took another yoga/meditation break.
• On New Year’s Eve Day I went to yoga. I took precautions. I talked to the teacher before class and told him about my injury. I didn’t sit cross-legged at the beginning of class. I sat in Virasana. On a block. But, not wanting to be limited, not wanting to be injured, I tried to do Compass pose. And hobbled out of class.

At this point, I could have gone to a doctor. Except I didn’t have health insurance then and having no idea how serious my injury was, I was afraid that walking in a doctor’s office would bankrupt me. So I decided to manage it myself by taking a longer break from yoga — six weeks off — and hoping it was just a pulled muscle or something and that that would take care of it.

After six weeks off yoga, a number of things happened to make my injury worse:

• The day before I went back to yoga, I went sledding. Sitting cross-legged on the sled brought back the pain in my leg and hip. And it turned out that I didn’t even like sledding, although I did like the hot chocolate afterwards.
• In pigeon pose in yoga class, the teacher adjusted me. Doing hip opening poses like pigeon is excruciating with this injury, but I’d figured out a way to make it not hurt that much by not opening my knee that wide. But on this day, the teacher came over and adjusted me, moving my knee wide and opening my hip way up. I told him I had a hip injury and didn’t want to go deep into the pose, but he moved my leg anyway saying that the way I was doing it would injure my knee, and then I’d have an injured knee and hip. This is where I got mad at the teacher, and even madder at myself. Because the teacher was a hot guy and one of those too-cool-for-school yoga teachers, and even though I know better, in the moment when he adjusted me I abandoned myself and let him, whereas if he had been a woman, or a not-so-hot guy, I would have stood my ground.

By this time I had health insurance again, and friends who were encouraging me to stop blowing this off and go to the doctor. So I made a doctor’s appointment but the earliest I could get in was in three weeks.

I suspected that my days of yoga were numbered and once I went to the doctor he was going to tell me that I couldn’t go anymore, so I just wanted to get in a few more classes. That weekend I went to yoga. I felt sort-of-OK-not-terrible afterwards.

But the next day I was in agonizing pain, and it was constant. I felt it with every step I took. When I stood up. When I sat down. While I was sitting. Walking up stairs. Going down stairs. And even though I’d been all this-is-no-big-deal about my injury for six months, all of a sudden I started to FREAK OUT.

This was my LEG. I need it to STAND ON. And it hurt ALL THE TIME. I was afraid I’d be in pain forever, that I’d never be able to do to yoga again, or to take a step without feeling a sharp pang in my leg.

I worried that I had a torn hip labrum like Lady Gaga (she does yoga, too!), and that I’d need an MRI and surgery, only I wouldn’t be able to afford a blinged-out wheelchair like Gaga’s.

I was freaking out, and I couldn’t do the thing which makes me not freak out, which was go to yoga. I panicked that I’d have to go on anti-anxiety meds, only I’m super-sensitive to medication and the one time I took it for a week I wound up not only not anxious, but sedated.

And then my doctor appointment arrived. I told him my symptoms, and he diagnosed me, which seemed kind of miraculous. That I didn’t have to worry and wonder and assume the worst anymore. That I could say, “This is what is wrong,” and he could say, “This is what you have.”

Which is hip bursitis. Something that does not require an MRI, or surgery, or a secondhand wheelchair. Something that can get better. Something where I can be free of pain, get my full range of motion back, and return to yoga.

I start a month of physical therapy next week and I’m so excited. I like/need to practice yoga about three times a week, and I haven’t be able to practice consistently since last fall. I’ve only gone to yoga a handful of times so far this year, between taking long, long breaks. As a result I often feel tired, achy, listless, foggy — and anxious!

I’m not meditating because sitting in my favorite meditation position is painful. Technically, I could still meditate and sit in any number of other positions, but meditating is kind of Pavlovian for me and I associate sitting cross-legged on a rolled-up blanket with the peace I then feel, so I’m being stubborn and not meditating at all.

Sitting cross-legged is also my favorite lounging around my apartment position, and my favorite watching TV position. Pulling my right leg in and crossing it is my writing position, and my talking on the phone position. I haven’t been able to do any of these things in months either.

After having been relatively inactive — and in pain — for so long, I’m excited to move and stretch in physical therapy. I’m excited for gentle exercise, being forced to take it easy and not push myself, which feels like it’s going to be really nurturing. I’m excited for healing my body and getting my writing and lounging and meditation positions back. And one day hopefully soon, getting my yoga back.