Carl: How do I love thee?

Though our first encounter four years ago was definitely not love at first sight, my feelings for Carl have morphed from bitterness and resentment to true love always. He took one look at me and told me I was a flat-footed, swayback, knock-kneed, humpback, scoliotic, double jointed Gumby person - and that was only the beginning.

Much like love, physical therapy hurts.

I would not normally take this kind of harsh judgment lying down. But as it happens, I was in so much pain, a feeble wince was all I could muster. No amount of denial, reasoning or retaliation was going to change the fact that the above assertions were less about judgement than diagnosis. Carl is my physical therapist.

Things started off slowly between us. My first assignment was to learn to sit in a chair properly. Yeah, you read that right. It is possible to do it wrong. If memory serves, next was flexing this one very special and elusive deep abdominal muscle. That took weeks and several ultrasound demonstrations to literally show me what needed to be done.

Through the years, Carl has worked on just about every inch of my body and I now boast an impressive repertoire of thrice-weekly exercises that help keep me off of his table. Most of the "work" he has done on me has involved using his thumbs, elbows and on occasion, needles to placate angry muscle groups and their fascia. Fascia is a kind of band-like connective tissue that surrounds muscles and when an individual adopts some type of aberrant behavior, like say, sitting in a chair the wrong way for 30 years, the fascia get down right belligerent.

Last July, I took a seemingly insignificant tumble in the front yard and hurt my thumb. The aftermath of that little incident has cast a shadow over my every move for almost a year...but Carl and I have had a breakthrough - I think.

Long story short, I went horseback riding about a month ago and naively assumed that the bizarre clackety-clack I kept feeling in my hip as we rode along was the reason my hip started hurting shortly thereafter.

It was my foot.

Duh?!?

My left foot had been protesting silently for weeks, months, maybe years and its cries for help were echoing in my upper left butt cheek. Buttock, if you will. This has always been my go to spot for pain.

Sit at my desk too long?

Buttock pain.

Fall up the stairs again?

Buttock pain.

Ride a horse?

Buttock pain.

The word buttock always makes me think about the scene
where Harold tells the priest he is going to marry Maude.

Re-enter Carl. He threw me up on the table, needled me with his uncannily pointy elbows all the way up and down my leg, thigh, posterior and low back. I screamed, cried, sweated, bargained, cursed and held on to the table for dear life. At the risk of jinxing the miraculous recovery I seem to be experiencing: 

Praise the universe! I (think I) AM CURED!!! 

The pain in my ass that has plagued me for years has been MIA for over a week now. Though Carl originally came up with some sketchy explanation about how my foot must have twisted in the stirrups when I went riding, we later agreed that the horse may have been wrongly accused. 

If my anatomical odyssey has taught me anything, it is that the human body is utterly complex and astonishing. 

Also, my love for Carl and his magic elbows knows no bounds and I would kiss the ground he walks on, if that weren't disgusting and unsanitary.