Back to Back…

Random pic I took of signs in Arkansas. Posted with this erm, post, since it’s better to have a picture with a blog, erm, post, than not.

Get it? Get it? Yes, I crack myself up. (Also a pun. Get it? Get it?!?!?) {…Never mind…}

The first time I met hubs’ mama’s brother, the incorrigible Uncle Noel, the first thing he said to me was “I swore when I got old I wouldn’t go on and on about my health problems”… and then he proceeded to tell us all about his broke back.

Now, I never promised nor swore nor affirmed in any way that I would never discuss health issues, but I also never expected that I would wax poetic about it either.

But since I done did, I guess I oughta write a follow up to my last post, in which I described and belabored my back pain, to let my fine readers (and the ones who aren’t so fine… you know who you are!) an update on Operation FixMeBack.

Yesterday (Monday), I slept as late as I could, then got up and wrote a letter of recommendation for one of my former students. (A teacher’s work is never done…)

Then I put on some pants, as for some reason that is encouraged out in the real world, but since I’m a rebel, I did not put on any makeup, and I headed 40 minutes north to my chiropractor. Who, hallelujah, had contacted me and made space for me on his busy after-vacation schedule. He took one look at me and said:

 
Girl, you are twisted!

 
 

Duh! Everyone knows that!

Apparently in the various activities required of being a human being ~ breathing, eating, sleeping, grading, moving furniture ~ I had twisted my lumbar, so he whaled on me for a while and also used some weird machine that was, as he put it, as if an acupuncture needle and a {I forget what exactly, something electric} had had a love child. Kinda weird, but it did seem to assist in making the adjustments of my broke back go a wee bit smoother.

Then, later in the afternoon, a 20 minute drive made 40 minutes thanks to an inevitable wreck on Atlanta’s fine surface streets, I had a massage, thanks to my dear Twink in Texas, who knows a massage therapist here in Atlanta, and who she hooked me up with*. (It’s a small world, but as Stephen Wright said, I wouldn’t want to paint it….) (*And yes, I know that’s horrible grammar, but it’s my blog, so I don’t care…)

She (the massage therapist, not my Twink) said my whosiwhatsit muscle that’s attached to my something vertebrae near my something (floating?) rib was out of wack, and proceeded to gently massage my bumps and bruises. … including sore spots I didn’t even know were sore!

Then I drove the 30 minutes home and laid (lied? gosh boy howdy, I hate that word construction!) on an ice pack and eventually went to sleep.

When I woke up this morning, I still had back pain, but it is (and was) now localized in the region of that lower back lumbar whosiwhasit, and isn’t shooting up my back and down my legs and making me want to crawl into a ball and cry and suck my thumb. I’m attempting to baby my back, and still sink using my knees, not bend over if I need something down low, and hubs is fetching stuff for me, the sweet thing.

So: THANK YOU to everyone who sent wishes and suggestions. I have not tried them all, but:  hubs did purchase me some castor oil, but I have not yet attempted to use it (and I’m still a leettle skeered, as it says “use as a laxative”, and that’s decidedly not my issue); I have now been taking turmeric (how in the heck do you pronounce that anyway!) tablets for two days now, although they do not seem to be helping and my tummy’s not exactly happy with them; hubs is going to purchase some Epsom salts for me (not “slats”, as I originally typed) and will draw me a bath (say that with a veeerrrrryyyyy drawn-out Southern accent and picture me with one arm flung up over my forehead); I’m gonna look into an acupuncture specialist and the Laser Touch One; and I’m going to be kind to myself, as my loyal follower and fellow blogger JT Twissel suggested.

Stay tuned… I swear there will be some The Questions and posts that don’t discuss my health issues. But of course, there will be some that do… As my grandpa used to say (more ‘n likely quoting someone else, but of course I shall always attribute it to him):

 
I knew I would get old; I just didn’t know it would be this soon.
 
 

Yours in the search for better health: