Tuesday, May 21, 2019

A sneaky post for Paul





It's Tuesday but it's already been a rough week. Kinda. Depends.

If you measure the week starting day-before-yesterday on Sunday, not so much.


However...

About 10 days ago I pulled the hell out of my left piriformis muscle. It's a small transverse muscle in the gluteal area which connects from femur to sacrum and assists in a small way with hip rotation. I was doing some advanced hamstring stretching and overdid it just a tiny bit. Within an hour or so I had a great deal of soreness in my left hip and pain radiating down the back of my leg all the way into the calf.

The pain I was having is/was sciatica by definition, because it was caused by the inflamed piriformis impinging on the sciatic nerve. Fortunately, that meant that it wasn't the other kind of sciatica which is caused by a bulging or herniated disc in the lumbar spine. That's a different kettle of fish entirely, and potentially a bad thing to have. Sciatica caused by piriformis impingement is temporary and will get better with simple rest. Fortunately for me, I have enough background and experience to be able to tell the difference so I had no need to fret over scary possibilities.


Butt (!) it hurts a lot. It's the kind of grinding pain that makes you want to go to the doctor and beg for vicodin. I didn't do that. Aspirin worked well enough, and I can't afford to be too loopy from pain meds to be able to get around and do important stuff. The pain did make me grumpy and my grumpiness was attended by a bad attitude. It was a real struggle. Such is life.


Today the pain symptoms are rapidly getting better. It's still there and it still hurts but I don't even need the aspirin. Reduced pain has improved my outlook and disposition a great deal.


Which is good, because we had three inches of snow overnight and another 3-4 inches this morning! It's supposed to be spring!


Well, it is spring. Sometimes spring is like this.


And to be honest, nature's majesty is glorious. I don't think I can find the words to describe how much I love the fact that nature simply disregards my preconceptions and desires. When nature serves up what I consider to be a curve ball, my flimsy platform of hubris and self-proclaimed superiority and mastery vanishes, leaving me to fall on my (sore) ass. And I need that, baby. I so need that!





How much better is my disposition today? Watch the following one through to the end and be the judge. Perhaps not so much better!

15 comments:

  1. You are just a little cranky!
    I have a ride along teddy bear, looks like I need a ride along baseball...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. One of my better combat swerves, I'd gave t-boned that car if tried to brake.

      CWS baseball from a few years back.

      Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete
  2. Okay, good job for a cranky oldish guy with butt hurt. Even made it interesting with a free anatomy lesson, drug tips (legal kind, of course), and safe driving lessons. Your assessment of the other driver is spot on! Resist the temptation to get back on the heavy workouts just a wee bit longer until you actually heal, not just stop hurting.

    Glad Mom can still get her exercise, and too bad that Dad is slowly getting less mobile. Good thing you are there to help.

    Always enjoy the news from your neck of the woods.
    John Blackshoe

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I want my long telomeres back!

      Thanks for the kind words John.

      Delete
  3. Replies
    1. I'm sure he is. Badgers is tough. He might be a she though. I was doing a little bit of reading and several sources noted that in the spring females often forage during the day, leaving their kids at home in the burrow. That and the fact that it went pure defense instead of attacking as per "common knowledge" leads me to that hypothesis.

      Delete
    2. Overheard near "Fredrika's" burrow as she reads this post: "Names? We don't need no stinking names; we're Badgers!"

      Delete
  4. Ok, I checked today. Thanks for the dedicated post. By the way, you do know that we are heading into a new ice age, hence the snow in mid-May.

    Thanks for the post.
    Paul L. Quandt

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're welcome. You can get a signed and numbered limited edition copy on my amazon page... ;)

      Don't get me started on climate/weather.

      Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete
    2. "You can get a signed and numbered limited edition copy..." My wife said that she wants one, how much do they cost?

      Paul

      Delete
    3. Shoot me a grid square and I'll see what i can do.

      Delete
  5. Ok, I didn't check yesterday evening. You got me.

    Paul

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Every hour on the hour. Which means your checking to finding ratio will be something like 500 to 1.

      Delete
  6. I have the OTHER version of Sciatica... Not fun. And you can keep the snow too!

    ReplyDelete