Fight's on, fight on through

Sublimation. It's not just a good idea, it's physical law.

Self portrait.

It snowed! An inch...

Nona can play; she understands "stay out of the street."

Tommy? Not so much. Pitiful whine.

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Well, my entire burgle account keeps getting suspended in response to claims that I'm violating tos and noospeke standardizations. I am not, it seems, sufficiently joined up with the cancel cancer. Anyway, it takes way too much time and effort to keep getting it unsuspended so the next time I'm going to bail.

I have the blog downloaded to a hard drive so I'll be able to migrate content to a better home. That's looking quite doable but also a lot of work; as soon as I gather up some spare cycles I'm gonna dedicate some heartbeats to the projekt.

I may or may not be back here, depends what happens re my account. Regardless, I'm going to depart for a better place sooner rather than later and leave the whole don't be weevil dumpster fire behind.

Fortunately I know who is behind the claims and they're far too stupid to follow me. They've also crossed the rubicon, so we're all good on that front.

Like anything else in life there's good and bad in this situation and the good ultimately outweighs the bad.

For those keeping score at home I finally broke the 4/minute pace on my step running. It's a case of faster rather than harder. Didn't see that coming, but what a pleasant discovery. There are no days lacking miracles and wonder. Some days also have yucky stuff, but that's just part of the deal.

Not allowed.

Not allowed

Really not allowed.

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Last Tuesday was a pain day. I had a lot of pain, the miserable, grinding radiculopathy pain. My left leg was at once burning, stinging, and aching. On the 1-10 scale I was at 5 most of the day, and that shot up overnight. Pain rating is purely subjective though, so the self-disclosed rating doesn't tell you a lot.

My subjective numerical rating is probably overblown, particularly in light of the fact that I never considered abandoning my post at the widget foundry. I ran steps, too.

That last bit might seem crazy, but when you understand the anatomy and physiology of spondylotic radiculopathy it actually makes sense.

The problem is nerve impingement. Pinch those nerves and they complain a lot. In my case the pinching comes not from direct structural impingement but from swelling. Soft tissue in the tight spaces where nerves run swells for any number of reasons and it's this edematous tissue which presses on the nerves. And that hurts. It's literally a pain in the ass. As well as the leg, which stings and burns like fire and aches severely all the way down the outside (lateral aspect), across the top of the foot and into the toes. It's a miserable thing.

I've never been able to identify a culprit or trigger for these bouts of unanticipated pain. It's not lifting or physical labor or running or working out, for I can usually do these things with a fair bit of impunity. There's a decent chance that lazy/improper gait might be involved, and sitting at a work station for nine hours doesn't help. There's also a chance that the genesis of the swelling is metabolic or associated with the body's natural process of attempting self repair.

I've found that when I get a pain flare the most efficacious approach to pain reduction is movement and stretching. These things increase blood flow and assist the body in its efforts to fix the proximal cause of swelling and reduce the swelling.

I've discovered that the best movement regime for me comes from stretching, pushups, and step running.

In these circumstances moving and stretching hurt, but over time the immediate hurt is far less than the hurt of immobility and babying the thing.

Therefore it's a matter of sucking it up and driving on, of fighting on through the pain. It's never easy, and I have to listen carefully to what my body is telling me, but it's doable and also the right thing to do if I want less pain and increased ability to enjoy the whole livin' experience.

Stretching and movement aren't ever instant cures. Sometimes it takes much more time than I like. Tuesday's pain lasted until Wednesday afternoon, for instance, and that meant a miserable and sleepless Tuesday night. The answer remains. Suck it up and drive on, fight through the pain, persevere, endure.

It can be hard, in fact it is hard, but it's doable. Working through the pain, working with the body nature has issued me, yields a grand reward. When the pain eases I feel fit and fantastic.

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The girl of the roadside cross was in dire straights. Alex was her best friend and when Alex died the blow was crushing. The girl tried to tough it out on willpower alone, but she could not. Now she was running from howling demons and her strength was flagging.

I wish I had known, but I did not. No matter, because chimeric might-have-beens mean little. In real world terms they mean nothing at all. These are the times when a non-judgmental ear, kind words of support, and the tiniest bit of help can make a positive difference.

The girl I talked to this morning bears no resemblance at all to the girl I talked to three nights ago. That girl was a shambling wreck nearing the end of her rope. This morning the girl of the roadside cross has returned.

When you run yourself into a corner, all you can see is the corner. You forget about the wide world right behind you, you can't even think to turn your head and look. It's amazing what a few kind words and suggestions can do, how they can turn impossible into doable.

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Be well and embrace the blessings of liberty.