Physical freedom and musical denial.

Since The Smalls were born 4 and 5 years ago, my body has pretty much been wrecked. SPD and sciatica fucked me over good and proper during the pregnancies, and during Isaac’s delivery, I’m pretty sure I wrecked some of the nerves when his head slammed into my pelvis. HILARIOUS. (Not.) Which is a shame, because pre-kiddos, I was ridiculously fit and athletic. I was stupidly fit physically, and no movement presented a challenge.

For the last 5 years, I’ve considered myself lucky if I can make it through the week without feeling screaming pain in my hips.

Needless to say, that’s a REAL bitch when it comes to my lifestyle. A wedding photographer, who genuinely wants to pick up her cello again. Not to play seriously, mind, no. I don’t want to go back there. But I do miss it. More so than I anticipated, and certainly didn’t think I’d want to play so much, so soon.

Sooooooo today I finally went to see ANOTHER osteo. It took me long enough, only because I was so sick of hearing “here, go do these exercises, you’ll be fine soon enough”. It gets really dull hearing that when you’re NOT fine soon enough. It also sucks hearing that, when you’ve had MRIs and X-Rays, and none of them seem to be very conclusive. In fact, I found the whole thing to be desperately tedious and dull, so I decided to go with the Grin And Bear It approach. Unfortunately, more often than not, “Grin” was actually “Grimace”. It’s a really sucky thing, and I’ve honestly tried not to go on about it in public or with friends and family. Spending days at a time on crutches, unable to feel my feet properly, and pretending everything was fine was getting reeeeeeally old.

Today’s appointment REALLY well. I’m nervous of osteos, as the ones I’d seen previously shortly after Isaac’s birth were too kooky for me, even by my standards. Turns out, this one is kooky, but brilliant with it. I can deal with that. I’d be lying if I said I’d come away feeling like I could have skipped home. The good feeling lasted about an hour, and now there’s tingling and twanging in my foot, leg, hip and back again. But that’s ok, I know the drill now. I don’t mind that! Start doing the exercises in a few days, go back next week, see how we get on with session two.

The hard part?

Being told I’m not ready to pick up my cello again.

I’m actually gutted. I know it won’t be forever, but I am genuinely gutted.

I’ve been secretly keeping my fingers nimble and sight-reading up to scratch by playing my violin (compensation) and piano every so often, tied in with flute for when I was really bored/desperate. But it’s not been enough. I have a mahoosive stack of cello sheet music sitting by my work desk. I hear Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony and I mentally remember every single note of the cello part. I casually look up the last orchestra I played with, and see they’re doing some of my favourite stuff, AND pieces I’ve always wanted to play.

And I’m denied.

I should have known it, really, that my core wouldn’t be strong enough for it. My body is shot to shit, and doesn’t have nearly as much of the strength it had before. And I hate that. I blame it on being lazy, not being bothered to do something like yoga or Pilates. The thing is, I don’t actually like yoga or Pilates  I get bored. I’d rather be up and about riding my bike, scaling climbing frames in parks, doing cartwheels and handsprings. Maybe finding an adult sized scooter and chasing The Smalls. But I didn’t do that. Because of the pain. Because of the pain which is far worse than pushing an 11lb baby which is facing the wrong way, out your vagina, with SPD and no medication. I would do that again. In a heart beat. If someone said to me, today, right now, that in order to get rid of this current pain forever I would have to repeat Isaac’s birth, I WOULD DO IT IMMEDIATELY.

As it stands, that’s not an option. So I have to continue with yet more physiotherapy and osteotherapy. And hope I can deal with the cello cravings.

And pray I don’t collapse during any of this year’s weddings. Hmm.