I didn’t write yesterday because I went to bed early, debating if I’d tempt the Fates and possibly wake in the middle of the night in such excruciating pain that I’d have to call 911. Somehow, yesterday afternoon, I started having pain in my right side. It started on the backside of my pelvis, like where your thumb strikes when you stand in a haughty manner with your hands on your hips. I went to the gym thinking the treadmill would work it out but as I walked across the parking lot, it got worse and worse. I was able to get a massage after 30 minutes on the treadmill. I’d hoped the massage would help. I had hoped the long, soaking bath would help. By 9:30 I was quite miserable. The pain had moved to the front in the textbook anatomical landmark called McBurney’s point. The appendix. I lay on the floor and twisted and stretched. I jumped up and down. No psoas sign. No peritoneal signs. Then I remember coming off the 8 foot step ladder a rung too high on Sunday, losing my step and stepping down into a hole. A double jam to my right sacroiliac joint. I watched and observed all the cricks and tension points today, forcing myself to stop thinking insane, paranoid thoughts about my autoimmune disorder and that I must have some smoldering, metastatic disease. And instead, by this evening, I have a locked and restricted superior pole on my right sacroiliac joint, a syndesmotic joint that doesn’t ‘really’ move, not like a hip or an elbow. But it moves with each swinging, sashaying step.
Today, I am thankful for knowing my human anatomy. I know the attachment points for muscles and ligaments. I know the pathways of arteries and nerves. I know all their names. I can visualize the human anatomy in a 3-d image, I can peel back one layer at a time in my mind like the transparency pages in the Encyclopedia Britannica. I know all the bones of the skeleton and the osseous ridges and processes. The great design and structure is a truly magnificent form of art. I must trust the anatomy and not be mislead by the imagination.