The back is on the mend. Feels kind of like one of those silly never-ending quests in Zelda or Dungeon Siege.
“Piriformis muscle, what do I gotta do to get you to calm down?”
“Well it’s all the fault of this dodgy calf muscle you’ve got on your left leg, it ain’t working right and is causing mayhem with your gait.”
“Calf muscle, what gives?”
“Well I’ve sort of atrophied due to what we suspect is interrupted motor control stemming from your slipped disc jamming against a nerve root in your spine. Go take care of that.
“Spine?”
“Yeah you just gotta strengthen your core and such, so I can get some support here and let the disc back in.”
“Fiiiiine.”
Before I started physical therapy I wasn’t much of a believer in special stretches or whatnot. I didn’t stretch myself funny to get into this situation, so what could PT do to get me out of it? But these guys really know their craft. Yesterday I got one of those elbow-massages to help get one of my perennially inflamed muscles to calm down, and boy howdy was it effective.
Apparently this phrase was coined by some French psychologist, but I know it best from Charles Dreyfus in The Pink Panther Strikes Again: “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better, and better.” My daily condition manifests itself as a sort of budget, for time I can spend not on my back, and it’s some linear combination of time standing and time sitting. Every day this budget expands. Today I managed to drive half an hour in to Seattle, the farthest I’ve driven myself since I returned from California last month.
Another dimension is flexibility, and that doesn’t seem to be improving as fast. Even before this blew up I wasn’t the most flexible of guys. Never could touch my toes, even in junior high. Ah well.
On Friday I had friends over to watch Non-Stop, and on Sunday I attempted to host a Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang movie night. However, enough people couldn’t show up that wanted to see it that I scrapped that plan at the last minute and we went with The Incredibles by popular vote.
That Sunday I actually made it in to church for the first time in three weeks, and it was awesome. Managed to sit through fifteen minutes of Fast & Testimony meeting before I had to go chill on a couch, then got through all thirty minutes of elder’s quorum; made it longer through that since the chairs there had arms I could hoist myself up on to “de-weight” my lumbar, always a delightful sensation.
On Monday I had arrangements to see the sister missionaries at my place. Wasn’t able to wrangle up anyone to be there as is required by mission rules, so I had them over to the office rooftop instead.
That night I hosted a hastily-put-together showing of Much Ado About Nothing, performed by David Tennant and Catherine Tate, now on Plex for your enjoyment.
Didn’t do much in the intervening week besides work and more work. Tonight I hung out with the same group from Monday to watch a rendition of Hamlet performed by David Tennant and Patrick Stewart. Excellent acting, though I prefer comedies.
On the way back from that I made a slight detour to see a friend in the emergency room. Wrote most of this in the lobby. Now it’s 2am and I just really want to get this out the door.
