In my ongoing quest to 'get my shit together' before I get even older and more physically broken-down, I have been consulting an Osteopath about the seemingly unending mystery neck/back/shoulder pain I've been having for about the past 6 months. If I had to name it, I'd call it "Acute Emotional Onset Extreme Tension" or somesuch. As my excellent name for it hints, it seems to reach its peak when I'm under extreme emotional stress. Which has happened twice in the past 6 months, and almost rendered me useless both times. Highly inconvenient, when one is trying not to mope, yet is almost confined to the bed from extreme, untouchable muscle pain and unable to even turn one's head. Anyway, that's doing much better (for now), so on to my actual point of this post - my visit with this doctor this morning turned out to be about something else completely.
This doctor is very thorough - almost alarmingly so, especially since he has a blood pressure machine that is CONVINCED I have high blood pressure. Every other single place I've had my blood pressure taken in my LIFE has reflected either normal or low blood pressure. I swear his getup is rigged to give him justification to prescribe unnecessary tests. So far, this alleged high blood pressure (that I totally don't have) has caused him to order a full workup blood test that revealed I'm actually totally healthy as far as my blood is concerned. But this morning, in my bloodwork follow-up visit, he was listening to my lungs and heart, and asked me if I knew I had a little bit of a heart murmur.
Heart murmur?
Aye, que no.
First of all, I'm 41, and have never been told by a single doctor that I have a heart murmur. So this is a new thing, as far as I know. And I have seen a LOT of doctors this year. Here's why I know it can't possibly be true. If my heart had anything to say, it would not merely 'murmur' it. It would shout it. With a bullhorn, probably. And would use my body cavity for further amplification.
But here's my theory: it is tired. It has exhausted itself this year with disappointment, betrayal, false hope, and ultimately, getting broken. So while I highly doubt my heart is even capable of something as understated as a mere murmur, I could conceive of it having completely spent its little muscular self throwing temper tantrums, kicking and screaming like an angry toddler until there just wasn't much left. So now, after the storm, and after the breaking, and the stitches, it's just kinda tired and leaky and cranky, like an old cracked tire with dry rot. Half-assed heart. And its probably muttering under its breath. Epithets like, "...such and such and blah blah blah NO COMMITMENT blah blah blah UNFAIR blah blah ALIMONY blah blah blah" while making nasty faces as it imitates those it mocks. If it had feet, it would be kicking tin cans in seedy, darkened alleys just to make the scene complete.
The good news is it doesn't always feel like kicking cans and mocking people anymore. Those feelings are actually pretty rare these days. I've even experienced some pretty spectacular unexpected moments of joy lately. Amazing, uplifting house music. Good friends. Purring kitty cats. Sunshine. Those things still work on me, and every little bit counts and they are adding up to more positivity than negativity overall these days, which is good. And overdue.
Like some of my other seemingly psychosomatic ailments, hopefully it will also heal itself and go away when it has no more cans to kick down the alley.
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