Guilty pleasures: after a fortnight of unendurable agony, I can sit down on the toilet seat, unaided, without having lumbar spasms, quietly, no involuntary screams, no desperate contortionist simian moves to get my thighs parallel to the seat. Bonus pleasure: I can finally wipe me own arse, TYVM. The shower curtain will never be the same.
My days are otherwise spent perched on a heating pad like a cat, in an iconic Jabba the Hut pose. The pad alleviates the constant dull roaring ache—like a background noise. I can’t pick anything up off the floor. Luckily I have prehensile toes. Getting dressed is interesting. Spearing my knickers with my talented toes and then curtsey-hulahooping them up my thighs, with a few bellydancing maneuvers tossed in for good measure, takes some serious planning and a degree in engineering. Plus some aspirin. And gawd help me if my bladder suddenly wants to get in on the action. I marvel at how wonderful our bodies really are, when something goes wrong, it drives it home. Coughing and sneezing (not to mention farting) require strategic countermoves.
Figuring out how to roll over in bed requires lots of precise isolation moves—like an osmosis roll. I think in the direction I want to move, and then, sluglike, I move the outer bits of my body the direction I want to go, rotate to the tipping point, and the rest follows suit. Really glad I took all those years of dance. The fact that I can roll over in bed, without having to do all kinds of strange crabwise maneuvers, that I can get my legs to the side of the bed, and ease into the upright position, and then walk across the floor, without crumpling in a heap, is huge progress.
Mind you, my butt is pretty stoned these days, ripped out of its mind with Robin Rule’s most excellent arnica-CBD salve slathered on it, morning, noon and night. It’s what gets me through the night. But every time I replenish the salve, I get the munchies. It’s not often you can rub salve on your glutes and get both cottonmouth and a sweet-tooth at the same time. Adds a whole new meaning to the term, candyass. Robin insists that I can’t get high from the salve, but watching Netflix is interesting. Colors become mesmerizing. Oh, wow, dude. Some of you know exactly what I mean. Even better than the placebo. However, I am a really cheap date.
I am clearly on the mend. Now I have to figure out ways to get in there to stretch those deep balance muscles that keep us upright. I could not sneeze or cough for two weeks. Who knew that those flexor and extensor muscles, including the quadratus luborum and the psoas, are necessary for proper sneezing and farting? Ya gotta find some humor in the situation, even if you have to mine your own bowels for it. What can I say, I’m channeling the Borscht Belt?
Driving a car is absolutely tooth-gnashing even with the help of a lower back brace. Shall I mention potholes? I’ve never been a fan of sitting in chairs, but I tore my muscles while lounging in my favorite bed slouch! To be fair, I was a bit stiff, too lazy to stretch out and straighten out that kink in my lower back. Payback time! This is my peculiar punishment for having leaped unexpectedly off the bed after working for hours posting jpgs in my art blog. As old classmate Andy Giddings who is still recovering from sciatica, so aptly said, Act your age, eliminate the word “jump” from your vocabulary. Are we there yet?
More on that CBD unction here: Serendipity 2.0
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