My Shame

Since the birth of Joseph, I have been interested to see whether my Terrible, No-Good, Falling-Apart Pelvis would get any better. It hasn't. I think it's worse.

I'm not going to go into how excruciating it gets after I have buckled three kids into their carseats at the shops, or how I've tried not to scream in pain when climbing into bed at night. Sometimes I just grab my right leg and haul it into bed or into the car, simply because I can't lift it using trunk & leg muscles without nearly passing out from the pain.

I'm one step away from going back to another physiotherapist. The only reason I'm not taking that step is after seeing my last two physios, I have a pretty good understanding of the problem, the anatomy, and the exercises I need to do to strengthen the muscles that should hold the whole lot together. I've also got a nifty one-sided stretch to do in order to relax the muscle that hitches the right side of the pelvis upwards, keeping it out of alignment. And a stretch for the poor little glutes that knot up to compensate for the pain - finally I can do this stretch now that I no longer have a giant belly in the way of where my leg needs to wrap across the front of my body to relieve this literal pain in the ass.

What to do? Well, tonight I did a little belly dancing to the Newsboys in the kitchen. Because it made sense and because the Newsboys are the best. You can disagree with me, but you would be wrong.

Now you're shocked and amazed because you're thinking I've been doing full-on, proper belly dancing. Not so. It was just the walking around with wiggly hips - the stuff you do in your first belly-dancing lesson. But it gave me an opportunity to hold a posture, tighten the muscles I need to work, and move a bit.

[Aside - My memory is not great, and I could be wrong, but I think maybe LDHBE was in my belly-dancing class with me about a decade ago. Such a vague recollection.]

So now we get to the shameful bit.

Picture me with a not-so-tiny baby boy asleep in my arms, dodging two crazy big kids high on each other's presence and the Newsboys, processing slowly around the kitchen going stamp-wiggle, stamp-wiggle, stamp-wiggle in time to the music.

And what was so shameful about it?

I broke a sweat.