Changes

Jan 24, 2013

So I’ve had an interesting week. . . if the word “interesting” can be used to describe scary and rather life-changing.

I went back to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu on Monday after taking a few weeks off. It’s a very physical sport, but I intended to start slowly and work my way back in. The class went well, warmup felt great, drills went smoothly. The last 15 minutes of the class are reserved for “rolling” – the BJJ name for what other martial arts consider sparring. It’s full-contact grappling, in a nutshell; a chance to practice in real time what you’ve learned. While rolling, there was an accident – my neck popped from the base of my skull to the middle of my back. Lots of crunching noises. Everything went numb for a few seconds, then everything lit up with pain. I was eventually able to sit up on the mat, and later drove myself to an urgent care clinic. When the clinic heard my description of what happened, they declined to treat me and suggested I go to an emergency room.

By the time I was released late Monday night, after almost 10 hours in the emergency room, I had a diagnosis of a ruptured disk in my neck, with an accompanying blood clot pressing on the nerve root leading to my left side (unfortunate that I’m left-handed) and a follow-up scheduled with a neurosurgeon Tuesday morning. More tests on Tuesday, consult with neuro, wait for information. On Wednesday I found out no surgery is necessary. I’m spending the rest of the week at home, and expect to go back to work on Monday.

So here’s the dilemma – BJJ was my exercise of choice. I’m pretty sure my neurosurgeon is not going to release me to go back to BJJ; even if he did, my husband would be decidedly unhappy if I decided to continue. . . Right now, I’m not allowed to lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk. But once I’m cleared for “normal activity”, I have to find a new workout. I know that exercise is critical for long-term success, so I really don’t feel like I have the option to just “sit out”. Now it’s a matter of finding something that I enjoy as much as I enjoyed BJJ.

Given what I’ve dealt with thus far, this should seem like a minor hiccup, right? But there’s a sense of loss that I wasn’t expecting. It sounds weird, but I feel like I’m mourning a death somehow – a loss of freedom that I had regained with my new post-op body. I’ll get over it, and move on and find something else to do for exercise. But. . . I’ll miss it.

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