Nope, not an injury.

And I didn't get a tattoo.

Yesterday, just before I left physio, the physiotherapist put a big tape "X" on my lower back, so whenever I tried to slouch the tape would tug and remind me to straighten up. Worked so well that I put a large Band-Aid on this morning to serve the same purpose. There is more give to a Band-Aid, but it seems to be working.

Also, I have duct tape if need be.

Anyway, I've had a few bad days and am still in the "be careful" stage, so I've reconsidered my decision to start riding again for now. But correct posture? Is in fact a good thing.

So I stayed at work pretty late last night (not work-related, more on that in a while) and then took the bus home as usual. City bus seats being what they are, and my leg being sensitive to pressure points, I was sore, hungry, and getting cranky by the time I got off the bus at about twenty after nine.

Before I started supper I figured I had better do my exercises, so I was down on the floor when the phone rang. It seemed late for a telemarketer, and I had missed a call from sagitare over the weekend, so I lurched (definitely the appropriate verb) to my feet, leg twanging, and limped over to the phone. Picked it up and said "hello."

Nothing for a second, then a young male voice said something like "Yo." And there was silence.

Me: (dangerously politely) "Can I help you?"
Young Male Voice: (slightly puzzled) "No, no help needed."
Me: (with vicious courtesy) "Well, then, you have a nice evening."

And I hung up and went back to my exercises.

About five minutes later the phone rang again, and I let the answering machine get it. Nobody spoke. I went about my business.

Five minutes after that it rang again, and I heard my sister's voice saying, "Sorry about a minute ago, your saucy nephew assumed you knew who it was!"

Yes, dear reader, I had hung up on my own nephew. The boy who, on any list of my ten favourite people in the world, would appear twice. He is, in fact, a major reason for my affinity for the young and spacey.

He is, in fact, a whole lot like me, and since he knew he was calling me, I think he assumed that I knew it was him calling.

Which, if his voice hadn't gotten so damned deep over the past year or so, I might have. Thank God I didn't say anything rude to him!

Anyway. Back to physio tonight, and I hope it helps my brain as well as my leg!!

The physio clinic called a little while ago to cancel my appointment for this evening, due to the physiotherapist being ill. I've been doing my exercises faithfully, and though they are wimpy little exercises they seem to be working (the physio thought my spine felt better.) They are also kicking my ass, and I think that's why I'm so sore this week. (The last couple of nights have been rotten, I wake up around two and painkillers and liniment do nothing to help.)

So it's probably okay to have a few extra days to acclimatize to doing the stuff I'm already doing before anything else gets added. With any luck I'll get to the barn tonight and at least try to longe and maybe do a few little carrot stretches.

And then of course I'm going out tonight, but I might as well, considering if I stayed home I wouldn't be able to get to sleep anyway. Also, I need to look for cushions for my kitchen chairs, since all my other seating options are really uncomfortable right now.

Might be time to bite the bullet and replace my older-than-me family-heirloom (;)) couch, too...

So apparently it's still too early to cut back too much on painkillers. I tried that this afternoon and ended up so achey I couldn't think straight and had to go home early. I'm just on my way to the barn now after another epic nap (chronic pain? Is very tiring!)

I suck. Sorry, Mitzi.

I certainly hope pain is a sign the exercises are dong something, because I dragged my carcass out of the physio office yesterday, facing the bus ride home, and I was really sort of thinking consumption by sharks would be a preferable option because at least then I knew it would eventually stop. I have two small exercises to do as homework and the one I had been doing seemed to contribute to a couple of really bad nights when added to my office desk--more on that later.

But I limped into the house, limped into my bedroom, got comfortable thank God, and slept for two hours. And when I arose, my leg felt considerably better. At the moment naps seem to be the way to go, so I went out later than night and stayed out until two-thirty, then napped again until morning. But that's another post.

Now, last week when I was demonstrating databases to our library student interns and we were set up in a conference room, my laptop was on a table considerably higher than the desk I've always used. Thing is, my work desk was meant for a workstation, so the sight line to my laptop isn't the same and it causes me to slouch. A lot. Between that and the regular office chairs, I was aggravating the injury every day. So first I swapped out the chair, and then yesterday when I asked my supervisor dug me up another desk that's a few inches higher than the old one. As I indicated in my last message, so far so good. I mean, it's not fixing the problem, but at least I don't spend the day undoing any gains I make elsewhere.

So, my supervisor FTW!

I have to run to a class, but this will be a day of multiple posts. First, though, on the sciatica front: I've already swapped out my office chair for one with different pressure points. Now we've swapped my computer desk for a higher one so I slouch less over my laptop. That worked in a session I did last week and as I stand up to leave the office this morning... feels good...

In other words, I'm off to keep my physio appointment. Let's see what this is all about from the patient perspective!

...I have an appointment with a physiotherapist, to see what we can do about this leg. I've having a mostly-good day today, and had a pretty good night last night, but Saturday night I tried to shift position and tweaked the nerve but good. The feeling is sort of like... okay, suppose you took an electric guitar--a crappy solid-body knockoff electric guitar, not one you were attached to--plugged it in, and turned the amplifier up to ten.

And then you dropped the guitar on the floor.

That twanging crash sounds very much the way my leg feels when I tweak the nerve. And it can take a long time for the reverberations to subside. It's pretty good in between times but I can't possibly spend the rest of the summer sleeping in fits and hoping not to drop the guitar again.

So. Physiotherapy. (Or, to my American friends, physical therapy.) Considering I am in charge of collections in that area at my library, it's silly of me to have taken so long.

I spent the afternoon showing our new library interns around the databases, and the chair I sat in didn't hurt my leg at all. I'm so kidnapping it out of the study room for my desk!

Posting from the public library, after spending a day at the annual meeting for the consortium of libraries my place of employment belongs to. The party never ends, I tell you what!

And then the bus was crowded so I had to stand up all the way home, which pretty much did in the good day my leg's been having.

Thank goodness for the Gloryhound show tonight, is all I can say. The chairs at Tribeca seem to agree with my leg!

I'm now sure my leg is improving, because one of the signs of sciatica is pain when you sneeze. (Go ahead, sneeze and pay attention to what your muscles do.) Anyway, for some reason I have been sneezing all morning and thank God my leg is only twingeing slightly every time. Because if this had happened last week I'm not sure what I would have done.

I can now hunker down and pick something up off the floor, which is a vast improvement over where I was about a week ago. However, I did a little reading on MedlinePlus--the consumer-health sister Web site of PubMed--and now I am starting to think that I know what my problem is. I think I might have sciatica. Now there's a lovely decrepit ailment for the old lady!

According to the information linked above, which you will note is from the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, in about ninety percent of cases the condition goes away on its own, and what I should be doing is... exactly what I am doing. I'm back to thinking I slept crooked during the NyQuil days, which makes me think hard about what I should do the next time I have a cold. If that's the cause I may never have this happen again.

Anyway, I may check in with the doctor again this weekend, but since whatever I have is improving at about the rate the AAOS says it should, and I'm doing exactly what they say I ought to... I'm not sure that's necessary. Although I may, and if this ever happens again I'll be faster to get on it!

In the meantime I'm just trying to avoid doing anything stupid while I wait for the problem to resolve. This is what they refer to in the biz as "conservative management."

Well, I might as well be conservative about something.

No, I'm not jumping the queue for Christmas. I think I overdid it over the weekend, what with the standing up for hours on Friday and the sitting in a hard pew for hours on Saturday and the riding lesson on Sunday and the longeing and riding on Monday... and my poor old back is stiff as hell. I'm walking around like the Mrs O'Whiggins character on the Carol Burnett Show. Or Tiny Tim, who is the first character I think of when I think of limping.

Quasimodo is a few degrees away.

I have to vacuum because my parents are visiting this weekend, and my mother is allergic to the cats.

There is blue lotion in my future, and lots of it.