This week I have a lot to be thankful for because I also have a lot of pain in my life. Sound like a contradiction? Well it’s not, you’ll see. Don’t worry, it’s not emotional pain or anything like that, but physical pain in my neck. I woke up Monday after doing my normal Sunday night Pilates video and had a small amount of pain on the back of my neck. I did some strength exercises for a work out Monday night and went to bed with a tiny amount of pain still in the back of my neck. Then, on Tuesday I woke up at 4am with an excruciating amount of pain that brought me to tears. It was so hard to lift my head up to get out of bed and to switch positions. I ended up emailing my boss at that time telling her I would most likely not be able to come into work. Then I managed to fall back asleep and woke up around 7am. I was in even more pain at that time and decided I should go to the doctor (after calling my mom, of course).

The doctor told me pretty much what I already knew, that I carry stress and tension in my neck, that I shouldn’t sleep on my stomach, and that it just happens sometimes that our necks tense up so bad they impact our everyday routines. She sent me home with some neck exercises, two hot/cold packs, and some prescription strength pain killers.

So what am I thankful for in this situation? Well although the pain did not go down very much the first day, the exercises did help, and I am happy that in today’s world, people know so much about aches and pains. I picture this happening to me one to two hundred years ago and there would have been nothing I could have done because people did not know a lot at that time. I might have been told to rub it or to perhaps put something hot on it, but there would be no pain killers like there are today and I’m sure there were no exercises to target painful areas of the body. I tend to take for granted all the knowledge that we have at our fingertips and also the knowledge we have been taught that seems like common sense, but really is all new within the last century. We’re so concerned with getting over any illness or pain that we’re suffering from so we can go back to our fast-paced lives which was not the way people used to live. We can get over things so much faster thanks to science and medicine; how could I not be thankful?

Now, what are you thankful for? If you would like, blog about what you are thankful for and then add the permalink to the post to this Blog Party list. Otherwise, you can just tell me in the comments. I can’t wait to see what you all are thankful for!