Taking turns

It’s a stark moment, the moment you know you’ve injured yourself. Along with the pain is the near-simultaneous certain knowledge that you’re in for a whimsical journey that will strain the limits of your pain threshold and sanity.

For me, that moment happened this past Saturday, when I nonchalantly dropped from my home gym pull-up bar onto the rubberized floor and into a world of hurt. My back, which had been fine up to then, seized up. Shortly afterwards, like the regrettable icing on a disgusting cake, I developed a UTI.

But here’s the silver lining when juggling afflictions: when one flares, the other one is forgotten. So far, they are taking intensity turns. For instance, if you were to ask me now, I’d tell you my back is killing me, but I know that soon my UTI will have me gritting my teeth as a different all-consuming agony has its way with my urethra.

Thankfully, I know this physiological do-si-do won’t last forever. But for as long as it does, I find myself grudgingly grateful that just as virtue is its own reward, pain is its own distraction.