So, I have a problem with my back. Seems that years of moving furniture, lifting weights and then weight gain have caused some discs in my back to get messed up. I say 'messed up' cause I honestly am not sure what has really happened to them. All I know is they're not quite right, and that it hurts when I sneeze or cough. But this post isn't supposed to be about the problem, but the solution.
The doc wants to make sure the problem isn't something simple like a muscle spasm or something...I guess. So, he's put me on a anti-inflammatory pill and 10 visits at "rehab". I'm guessing rehab is supposed to be translated physical therapy, but I honestly think the idea that I'm in rehab seems somehow ironic, seeing as though part of my work is encouraging alcoholics to go to that very place.
I digress.
So, I walk into the clinic and sign up privately to get rehab. Turns out private is the way to go, cause if I were to go on the public health care system I'd get in in two months. It'd be way cheaper, but I'd have to live with the idea that I'm not getting better all that time.
The ladies in the clinic are very cordial and helpful - good sign! However, the equipment all looks EXACTLY like something out of a 1970's NASA training film. Grey boxes with simple large dials, diodes, over sized red and black buttons and each sporting one red light labeled "Alarm". Yeah.
The chiropractor didn't really have the time to explain to me the things he was signing me up for, so I was just along for the ride (so to speak). The nice lady told me to go down to stall number 5. The stalls were separated from each other by hanging sheets. In stall 5 was a chair, a table and something that looked like a tube space-heater. Turns out this would be the 'baker' as I have come to call it. The lady turned it on and it baked my upper back - she said if it got too hot to just move away from it.
How to explain what I was thinking that first day? I guess you could say I figured it's important to be tan when one is having back pain. After all, if you can't feel good, you most certainly can look good.
After about 15 minutes (or medium-well as they say in the medical field), I was 'done'. The nice lady told me to move up to stall 1.
Stall 1 is the home of the 'microwave', or at least to me it is. Apparently, when one has a disc problem, one must be certain that the back is not allowed to monopolize the pain allocated to the body at large for a given period of time. So, in order to avoid this, they smeared me up with gel, put something over the gel - sand bag on that - and turned on one of those amazing NASA devices.
The nice lady said (and this is a reliable translation) "You should feel something like ants crawling on you." I could feel them. I told her I felt them. She said "Let's turn it up." I no longer felt ants on me, but rather a legion of soccer playing centipedes in ice spike cleats playing an all out championship soccer match on my back. In other words, it hurt.
The nice lady could tell by the expression on my face that I was in pain, and with a whimsical 'I can finally make up for all the trouble the males of the world have caused me' smile, she said - and I quote "That's a good setting."
About 15 minutes later....or maybe it was 2 hours, an alarm sounded. I'm guessing that's how they know when you're no longer pink in the middle. She wiped the gel off and told me I could now go to the LASER.
I couldn't wait for the LASER. After all, a LASER is new technology! A LASER changes things! A LASER can take down huge enemy planes in midflight! Apparently, lasers also existed in the early 60's. Here's my meeting with the laser:
beep
beep
beep
beep
Ok, that's all for today sir - thank you for coming!
I have gone to the chicken farm 4 times so far, and according to the doctor have to go ten times before he'll see me for another exam. He said that if these things don't help, we'd do something more "serious" later.... I can't wait. I'm hoping it'll not include the sensation of elephants walking on my skin.
Hope you all have enjoyed this- leave feedback if you so desire - it always makes me smile.
corey
