humiliating daily activities in my life volume 129836571

so i went to my first physical therapy session for the mystery tailbone pain the other day.

i've been to physical therapy before and am a HUGE believer in their practically magical ability to heal broken body parts, but i was a bit skeptical about how it was going to help me in this case. i mean, i don't appear to have any tendon or muscle issues; it's just this weird really painful area right on the bottom of my tailbone itself. but hey, i'm no doctor. maybe i did something weird to the muscle or tendon right on top of the bone! sure! let's give physical therapy a shot!

so i get there, and my physical therapist (who is also named alice!) has pretty much the same reaction as everyone else: huh. well. that's... weird. you sure you didn't fall?

(this was after an awkward conversation where i tried to explain what aerobic pole dancing entails to a 50ish year old woman who had clearly never heard of such a thing.)

after doing a diagnostic exam to check out the state of my body, make sure i didn't have some alignment problem contributing to the pain, etc., she concluded that:

a) my hips are really not flexible

b) one leg is 1cm shorter than the other

c) "it's no wonder" i'm not a runner "with those feet," and

d) none of these discoveries had any significant impact on my tailbone situation.

(although she did send me home with exercises for my hips / hamstrings, because apparently they're *that* bad.)

she told me she'd have to call some colleages and go back to her books to look up tailbone problems like mine, because it was so odd and rare. wheee. then she goes "as for therapy today.. i wonder if i should try electrical stimulation or ultrasound on you? hmm... let's see how ultrasound works."

me: ok. uh.. is it an ultrasound like.. you know.. for pregnant women...?

therapist alice: yes, same idea! it's sound waves, but without imaging, and at a higher frequency. it warms up the affected area and helps stimulate blood flow.

me: ok!

so i'm sure you guys are all familiar with where your tailbone is, but let me just remind you with this visual aid.
and my injury appears to be WAY at the bottom of the tailbone. so, take a minute, and try to visualize exactly HOW applying an ultrasound wand to that area would work.

if you visualized something like this, you would be correct.
that's me, facedown on the exam table, with my bare ass exposed and an ultrasound wand up in my bidness.

i'm scheduled for 11 more visits. sigh.