When You Stop Listening to Your Self

Not That Kind of Hospital Post

It’s always bizarre to me when people post pictures of themselves lying in a hospital bed, all connected to wires, on social media. This is not one of those posts, although the image is of me in a hospital office.

The Appointment

I admitted myself—or rather, scheduled an appointment—with the nurse practitioner at my primary care physician’s practice. I was experiencing the symptoms of sciatica. I’ve done some research, and everyone explains that sciatica is caused by a twisted vertebra or a bulging disc between vertebrae—what chiropractors call a subluxation.

I went to the appointment and labeled the visit “exploration into sciatica.” This way, the medical professionals already knew why I was there. I followed their line of questioning and relied on all the research I had done.

“Yes, I think that I have something wrong with a vertebra because I have shooting pain in the back of my leg, the back of my calf, and the top of my ankle. It’s worse when I sit for long periods or when I climb stairs, and it’s better after I do some stretching and take a mild walk.”

A Key Realization

Here’s where the story gets interesting. If I really think about it, I’ve never had any pain in my lower back. It really doesn’t hurt there. It hurts below that, in the muscle deep inside my gluteus maximus—aka my butt cheek.

A Conversation That Changed Everything

Afterward, I was chatting with my neighbor, we shall call him “Dr. J.”, although that is not the real name of this Dr. The Doctor became a pathologist because the doctor is sick of dealing with people, and I don’t blame the Doctor for this. I think it’s the same reason I became an instructional designer.

Anyway, he explained that there’s a syndrome that has the exact same symptoms as a lumbar vertebra out of place. Piriformis syndrome is when you pull a muscle that’s connected from your hip down into your leg. It’s often confused with a disrupted vertebra, causing the pinched nerve and shooting pain.

Listening to My Body

If I had just listened to my body, I would’ve known this. While I was in the doctor’s office, I relied on the knowledge I had gained from my research online. I was using that to inform my answers to the nurse practitioner’s questions.

It’s easy to judge myself on this in hindsight. After all, my logical brain is what I allow to drive my consciousness. However, if I had paused and listened, there would’ve been much less stress around this entire experience. Instead of having a messed-up back, I simply would’ve had a pulled muscle in my butt!

Final Thought

Either way, it is a total pain in the ass! But it didn’t need to cause me such alarm. It would not have caused me such alarm if I had slowed down long enough to listen to my self.