Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Happy Cycling
My cycling friends invited me to go for a ride yesterday. Six days ago, I was suffering an immobilizing pain in my back. I could hardly stand up. On Monday, I tried to take my therapeutic walk, but couldn’t go but a short distance. I stayed home from work, and scheduled my first-ever acupuncture appointment with no idea what to expect.
It was very simple. After a very brief description of my situation, the practitioner placed needles in various places: ears, arms, hands, legs, and feet, and left me reclining in the dim room amid sounds of flowing water and celestial music. I’ve suffered worse procedures.
I had no idea what I was supposed to feel. It was nothing, if not relaxing. After almost an hour, the needles are removed, and it’s “Have a nice day.” That’s it? I just get up and go now? Okay.
I worked half a day on Tuesday, before I tired of trying to function in a semi-normal fashion. At least I was able to do something. There was definite improvement. By Wednesday, I was able to complete my usual distance of therapeutic walk in the morning, and did all my back exercises.
I had two follow-up acupuncture appointments, on Wednesday and Friday. I was feeling very close to normal function. I had not taken any pain medication beyond one last dose of ibuprofen on Monday morning. I have had zero negative side effects from having acupuncture.
In the past, I have been able to ride a bicycle, even though my back was ailing, so I was willing to try joining my friends for a ride yesterday. However, during my mental preparation for the excursion, I realized that my bike was hanging upside down overhead in the garage. I was going to need to reach above my head and hold that weight at precarious angles to get it down. I’m pretty sure that this falls well into the category of things I’ve been advised not to do.
With some trepidation, I carefully managed the task, bending over multiple times as I prepared my bike and myself for the ride. I pumped up the tires, using my manual pump, thinking the whole time that the motion was probably ill-advised. I removed the front wheel and picked up the bike to hoist it into the back of my car. All accomplished with no problems from my back!
We had a wonderful 20-mile ride on trails from Hopkins to downtown Minneapolis, where we lunched at the legendary east European deli, Kramarczuk’s.
I can think of no reason I shouldn’t give the practice of acupuncture credit for giving me such a quick return to one of the great pleasures of my life. I will gladly continue to do more testing of this judgement.
Madness Happens
There must be a law of physics that can explain the difference that exists between regular season college basketball games and the NCAA tournament games that happen in March. Even though I have no allegiance to fuel my interest, I can’t help but be drawn into the excitement of these tournament games. During the regular season, I don’t find anything the least bit interesting in games between two random schools.
Sweet 16, elite 8, final 4… I love ’em all, especially when there is a lower seeded underdog team making a run, knocking out powerful schools with storied pasts. Every game seems to have one or two individuals with heartening tales that add depth to the already exciting entertainment.
Our state high school tournament is this weekend and switching back and forth between the two graphically reveals the development that happens to young men between their late teens and early twenties. Those high school players are just boys, compared to the college players that look like men.
Of course, some of the split-second decisions those college guys make in the games could be seen to support the research that indicates brain development is not complete until about age 25.
Everest Thinking
I stayed up a bit later than I should last night, watching our state high school basketball tournament, the Minnesota Wild NHL hockey game, and 4 NCAA basketball tournament games, while simultaneously playing 4 different games of “Words with Friends” against 3 other people. That is, after I played guitar for a couple of hours.
I never got my head around thinking about what today’s blog post would be about, partially because I was also distracted by a book my daughter gave me that has my mind on Nepal again. I’m reading, “Detectives on Everest” about the 2001 Mallory and Irvine research expedition.
Yesterday, my friend, Pam, pointed me to a great photo at National Geographic’s site, where I discovered their coverage of a 2012 expedition. I have never had any interest in climbing the highest mountain on earth, but I sure love reading about the experiences of others who do.
Take a moment to check out all the amazing photos and other information at the National Geographic site covering Everest:
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Getting Poked
Painful times demand dramatic steps, so, after this most intense incident since my disc degeneration first became noticeable, I followed the advice I immediately received from two different friends, and am seeking acupuncture treatments. It is not something I have any experience with, but I am open to the possibilities and happy to try alternatives to pharmacological routines.
I already practice the treatment regimen I learned from physical therapy, after my initial diagnosis. But that is tailored toward helping long-term. I’m looking for acupuncture to help manage the short-term acute discomfort.
So far, so good. Finished my second session last night, and I have another scheduled for Friday afternoon. It is difficult to tell what aid it is actually providing, but I am experiencing definite improvement, and haven’t taken anything for pain since before my first session Monday. It certainly isn’t causing any negative side effects (unlike the stomach complaints that ibuprofen usually causes me).
At a minimum, it gets me to lay still and rest for 45 minutes-to-an-hour, in a quiet and peaceful setting. Part of me thinks that is the secret.
The needles are just to distract me long enough for the benefits of resting to take effect.
Pain Again
In the ongoing excitement of degenerative disc disease, I had a very interesting experience yesterday. I have done well to maintain my routine of daily 1/2-hour walks, and have been working my stretching and strength building exercises. Maybe I have done too well. I have had so little discomfort that there are moments when I forget that I am at risk.
Granted, I had allowed myself to become distracted, and I was thinking ahead to what I would do next, while I carried our exercise ball downstairs, but it didn’t seem like a risky action. It is hard to constantly keep your mind focused on thinking about how you are moving. All I did was lean forward a small amount in the action of intending to set the ball down on the floor. BAM! Sudden take-my-breath-away pain erupted in my lower back.
It put me to the floor. I searched for a position that might not hurt so much, but couldn’t identify whether laying on my stomach, or over on my back, offered any advantage. It just hurt.
I relaxed enough to catch my breath, struggled to my feet, and then tried to carry on with activity. I put some cold packs on my back and took some ibuprofen. This incident felt a bit worse than any of my previous flare-ups, but still seemed manageable. We had some company over for brunch and I alternated between sitting and standing. After they left, I headed for some carpeted floor and laid down where I could completely relax. I was laying on top of a cold pack that rested in the small of my back and it felt good. I could push my back onto the cold and against the support of the floor. Maybe that wasn’t a good thing to do.
When I decided to get up, I discovered that I couldn’t find a way to do it. With great effort, and against new waves of pain, I found I was able to roll over, but I could not find a way to get myself upright. Cyndie and Julian needed to do the work of lifting me up from under my arms, but I found I could hardly stand up and support my own weight without scary amounts of discomfort. This was all completely new to me.
I have no idea what the exact physics of that episode was all about, but I will refrain from laying flat on the floor, with an ice pack under my lower back, for some time to come. Slowly over the remainder of the day, and after multiple doses of ibuprofen, I felt I was gaining the ability to function without debilitating pain, but this is a definite set back in my ongoing effort to live comfortably and function relatively normally, despite degenerative disc disease.
Ouch.
Inspiring Visit
With Cyndie home for the weekend, and the weather almost summer-like, we let our hearts lead us to the one thing we both felt drawn toward: a visit with the horses. We were doubly rewarded to find kindred spirits present with a similar agenda of wanting to just be with the horses. Inspired conversation blossomed on a variety of topics related to learning, ranging from Cyndie’s current situation in Boston, to the opportunities available beyond the conventional (outside the box) to provide meaningful lessons to the full range of styles of learning and processing information.
As I stood back, observing the verbal explorations, I witnessed the horses reaction to the changing dynamics of the conversation. When I pulled out the camera in attempt to capture what I was seeing, the animals reacted and the scene was altered, but for some time, there were two horses, in particular, that stood at the fence with ears forward, fully absorbing the vocal exchanges.
It was beautiful to witness the similar interest to be in each other’s company. The people wanted to be with the horses, and the horses wanted to be with the people.
Out of the conversations of the afternoon, one enticing tidbit for me was the idea of learning equine body language and, more importantly, how human body language is interpreted by horses. The teachings of Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling was referenced. After we got home, I watched a video of Klaus dancing with a horse and immediately recognized this as appearing strikingly similar to how Ian Rowcliffe, in Portugal, looks when he interacts with his horses.
It is inspiring, to say the least.
Quiet Day
It is a quiet morning, other than the screeching girls playing outside in the neighbor’s yard. The temperatures are suddenly summer-like, for the last days of winter here in Minnesota, and windows are thrown open and all the sights, sounds, smells, and screeches of the world are allowed back into the house.
Cyndie is home for the weekend and is sleeping soundly next to me, regardless the racket next door.
I am feeling grateful, …and quiet.
Comfortably Uncomfortable
With a nod of thanks to my friend, Gary Larson, last night I was able to hear actor, writer, author, voice artist Wallace Shawn speak at an author lecture series at the Hopkins Center for the Arts. He read from one of his essays on the Quest for Superiority. His perspective, as one who was born into a privileged life, yet suffers the angst of discovering that it comes at the expense of those without privilege, is one that I understand very well.
Earlier in the day, I had read a commentary (counterpoint) in a local newspaper, “White Privilege is Most Potent When Denied” and the combination of the two things, occurring on the same day, both relating to this similar issue, have me re-invigorated to consider ways I might contribute in an ongoing way to shedding light on the topic.
There is that difficulty of continuing to enjoy the benefits of the current system, while trying to point out the failures of the system, that makes doing so particularly difficult. As ‘Wally’ points out, it can be comfortable living in privilege, and it is too easy to lose attention to the issue under the spell of those comforts.
Ideally, it would be desirable for everyone to rise to a level of privilege that would enable the joy of being comfortable, …as opposed to simply removing all comforts toward a goal of total equity for people the world over.
It is an issue that exceeds the capacity of my feeble mind to adequately comprehend, but at least I am past the point of obliviousness, or worse yet, denial. It is something for me to think on, this concept of shedding light on the topic, ongoing.
Delicate Attempt
The results are in, and in my opinion, my performance at yesterday morning’s soccer [futsal] game was a mixture of success and failure. But that is a good thing. It would have been a surprise if it turned out to be just a smashing success. What would that be like, anyway; that I could play just fine with no pain? No, that would fool me into thinking I could go back to my old routine, and all indications point to that being a counterproductive plan of action.
I definitely felt some impairment due to the discomfort of my degenerative disc disease. However, that made it easier to remain very conscious of my situation and helped me to purposefully control my stride. I think I did a pretty good job of running with a very smooth gate, light on my feet, as opposed to the usual pounding I am prone to do. If that made me slower, I was compensating for it a bit by making early decisions about where I was going to go. I headed back into a defensive position much quicker than I would have previously.
That is actually a very smart mindset for me to get into, because now that I think of it, the clomping back to help on defense that I used to do, most often involved me chasing an opponent from behind, too late to do any good.
Although I believe it was entirely serendipitous, one of the successes I enjoyed was scoring goals! I’m generally not a very prolific goal scorer, but I had 4 really good goals that came from being fed beautiful passes when I was positioned on the far side of the net. It provided a nice reward and a feeling that I contributed something positive for having shown up. I think it would be a stretch to say that the attempt to soften my effort for this indoor game was responsible for the uncharacteristic increase in scoring prowess, but the goals sure served to sweeten the morning’s effort for me.
One of the failures of my attempt to play at a slower pace, with less physical impact, was turning the ball over when I had plenty of time to make a decision and execute a play. I just didn’t have my usual touch. Several times, the ball just got lost in my feet. One time, I actually swung to kick, and missed the ball. I was trying to shift my weight and keep my eyes up, and by the time I kicked, the ball had moved. Two times in particular, my turnover led to an immediate goal by the other team.
Another time, I misplayed an attempt to block a shot and it deflected off me, directly into our net. I wondered aloud if that was “a Hays,” because it led to the 5th and winning goal for the opponents, but players assured me it fell outside of the ‘own goal’ act associated with that label. I offered an opinion that it might deserve to be a sub-category.
It was a morning of mixed results, which I am taking as a promising outcome, overall.
Decisions, Decisions
Here we are again, with the clocks adjusted ahead, moving dusk beyond the dinner hour. That means darkness is delayed long enough that chores can be prolonged later into the evening. Oh, joy.
I spent the weekend removing wallpaper from 2 bathrooms. I am really glad that is done. Now I am struggling to figure out how to choreograph the next phases of drywall repair and painting. Ideally, the furniture should be moved to a neutral location, but we haven’t got a room that doesn’t need work.
I have no idea where I am going to end up sleeping.
I will likely have to ask the crews doing the work to break the job up and just do portions at a time. That would allow me to empty some rooms by putting everything into a different room that will be done later.
On the surface, that may not seem like too big a deal, but I am here all by myself, and moving furniture alone is an onerous task, especially with degenerating discs in my spine.
It is less than a year now since I suffered the first symptoms of pain from degenerative disc disease, for which “the first line of treatment is usually to avoid aggravating the condition. Modifying activities to preclude lifting of heavy objects and playing sports that require rotating the back (e.g. golf, basketball or football) can be a good first step.” (from Lumbar Degenerative Disc Disease Treatments by Peter F Ullrich, Jr., MD)
On the subject of not playing sports that involve rotating the back (or pounding up and down the hardwood gym floor), I was considering canceling my membership to the sports club where we play our three-times-a-week morning futsal games, and just quitting cold turkey. I had already reduced my attendance to Mondays and Fridays, but since my most recent flare-up, haven’t played for 3-weeks, and I will have plenty of work to do on preparing the house for showings, and will ultimately be moving to a more rural area that will likely pull me away from the games anyway. It seems to me, quitting now would be a logical thing to do.
But… maybe I have played too many years with these guys to just disappear. Something is keeping me from taking that step that would guarantee the conclusion of my participation. Part of me is wondering about the possibility that I might experiment with altering my level of play to become more conscious of how I move during action. I could practice being light on my feet, and deliberate in my attempts. I will be a bit slower, and probably less effective. I’ll finally start acting my age out there. If I learn to play more prudently, I may be able to prolong my opportunities to mingle with a great collection of friends who share my love of soccer.
That is, until we move out to live with horses.
