Back on the bandwagon

I have held back posting lately because I really did not want to write yet another desperate blog post about pain. Although I've been letting my frustrations out a tad on Facebook, it's quite something else to indulge my inner pessimist in a verbal vomit of misery and dejection.

Part of me didn't want to blog about the past week or so because I also didn't want to admit things were going good (which would be an understatement.) Once things are in this blog they get a sort of permanence, at least for me. And then I also worry that the way I tend to write creates a sense of draaaaama that places a big, dark cloud over the very thought of me for friends and worries my family somewhat needlessly. Given that I've been doing a lot of raining on parades via FB lately, I'm not sure I should be worried that much - I'm sure you're all already tired of hearing about my problems and putting a big X across my name in your social calendar. Who wants to hang out with the broken, miserable, whiney Brit chick? I know I wouldn't.

So, I've been waiting... in short, for P.R. purposes.

Which is why today's blog post is about a new plan. Yes, another new plan. I've lost count of how many plans came before it but at the very least it has to be plan #10. I can list at least 10 previous treatment strategies for my various problems in the last five years, just off the top of my head, so I'm sure I'm missing a few. I'll spare you the details. If you've stuck with me through the years on this blog, you already know the sorry story anyway.

As usual, I had to hit rock bottom again before I could start to claw my way back up out of the pit of pain and despair. (See? I'm dramatic. Don't take me too seriously. I didn't almost die or anything.)

If you read my post before last (Where is TravelVixen?) you'll know that I had cold-turkeyed all $1,000 and 15 hours a month of my various therapy appointments. I had improved my pain about 30%, I estimate, was doing all my exercises diligently and was tired of focusing on the pain 24/7. I was done with "can't" and wanted to chart my own path to prove everyone wrong - I could be not only healed but active and fit again.

Well, it didn't work. 8 weeks after my cold turkey and I am as broken as I've ever been. My SI joint pain returned with a vengeance over Mothers Day weekend and this past weekend I put my back out doing something inane.

As I've tried to ever-so-carefully step-up my exercise regimen (and I do mean carefully and slowly), pain returned, even though I was continuing to follow some basic rules and principles of the Physical Therapists and Alexander Technique experts that I had previoulsy visited. Which says to me (at least in my head) that I have no hope of being anything other than a couch potato. Any attempt to do much more results in pain. Making the bed sparked Sunday's episode, which had nothing to do with my hip - this time it was my middle back and shoulders. Seriously!? Making the bed!? Most people run a mile from doing housework but I would seriously LOVE to be able to clean my house top-to-bottom without needing to stop after 20 minutes because of pain or fatigue, or suffering in a major way the next day (or in this case, days.) Four days later and I'm still in pretty decent discomfort (probably a 4/10 in pain with meds) and every time I take a deep breath, something cracks in my back.

I'll spare you the blow-by-blow but, after four days of this I succumbed and did two things:

ONE
I booked an appointment with an acupuncturist. Yes me, the woman who is pathologically afraid of needles and can't even WATCH a needle being inserted into flesh on the TV. The woman who had to bring her husband along for every blood draw during her pregnancy and made the nurses find a room where I could lay down just so I wouldn't faint.

That chick is so desperate she is going to have hundreds of needles inserted into her flesh on the off-chance that all this Eastern Mumbo Jumbo is more than just that. My massage therapist has an acupuncturist she personally uses and is in the same office suite as her and so I'm going to go there. The lady is also a prior RN, so she's not just a Eastern Mumbo-Jumbo'ist. That makes me feel a bit better. I think you should understand Western Medicine before delving into all this other ancient stuff, and visa versa quite honestly. You can't just ignore all the knowledge modern medicine has brought us over the years. Anyone who does just scares the heck out of me. The last thing I need is a Quack.

My appointment is next Tuesday. And yes, of course, I will blog about it.

TWO
I happened to see a live promo on a local TV station for a physical therapy facility here in Sacramento, where the focus is on active, sports therapy. The owner is the PT to the local AAA baseball team and the facility is accredited by Major League Baseball, as well as being the training/physical therapy center for a number of well known athletes, including an Olympian and a cage fighter. Quite the resume!

I sent a desperately long mail to the owner, telling him all my woes and he called me back personally that evening. Today we talked and I have a personal appointment with him for an evaluation next Friday.

What do I hope to get out of this PT that I haven't out of the myriad of others? A more goal-oriented approach to my recovery. Yes, I want to be able to get rid of the pain. Yes, I would like to be able to make my bed or vacuum my floors without injuring myself. But I would also like to return to some light yoga workouts and some weight training. I'm not expecting to just jump back in to being who I was at age 29 because, let's be honest, I'm not 29 any more. However, I do want to be able to ski and hike and bike and yoga for fun again. I want to be fit and healthy and as free of pain as I can possibly be. I want my life back, in short.

Will this guy deliver? Who knows? But it's worth a try. In this, I am driven by this quote from Thomas Edison: "Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time."

I'm hoping one more is all I need because, mentally, this last set-back really got me.

The not-so relaxing spa visit

How can that be, right? Spa and relaxation go hand-in-hand.

Well, that has usually been the case for me but, of course, like many things lately, the "powers that be" have conspired to make my life more interesting and blog-worthy by providing me with an 'experience' to share. My pain is your enjoyment. You're most welcome.

It begins with some good news: I won a $50 gift certificate to my 'favorite' local spa. Yay! In going through my gift-cards I also realized I had a $100 gift certificate to the same place from Christmas. So, SCORE!, thought I, I'll book myself a mega spa evening and really go all out.

Rather than the usual European Facial and Eyebrow wax than I indulge in from time-to-time, I wanted to do something different. I looked through the menu of services and decided upon a hot stone massage (which I've never had before) and a "Fire & Ice" facial, becuase it was new and sounded interesting.

Last night was my spa evening and for some reason it started off with me having the mommy guilts. I had to stop work, grab Daisy from her nanny and then drop her right off to her Nan and Grandad's house. For some reason, the quick pass-off didn't sit right with me. Late afternoon/evening is "our time" and I found it hard to drive away just to do something so frivolous. I never would have thunk that I would have had these problems but, there you go, that's motherhood for you - full of surprises. The point is that my frame-of-mind was not "Oh goodie, mummy's going to get some 'me' time!" it was more like "Man, I'm cutting into "our" time just to spend two hours being selfish."

Things started off well. The massage was good. I wouldn't necessarily say that I would do a hot stone massage again but the novelty was good enough to appreciate it as a one-time experience. My masseuse was quite funny too; not your normal calm and soft-spoken masseuse. He was gay (which is neither here nor there but just a descriptor) but that fastidious, nervous-energy, kind of gay man - think Alan in Two and a Half Men (who is not gay in the show but should be) or Mitchell in Modern Family. So he did everything with quick and short movements, like when you bat a fly away from you. He constantly straightened out the sheets on my massage table and dropped the stones in a metal bowl as if they were hot potatoes. (Which I guess, of course, they were.) It was enjoyable but different. I will say it was nice to get a massage 'just for fun', for a change.

Then came the "Fire & Ice" facial...

I started to get an inkling that this wasn't going to be enjoyable when the esthetician began the treatment by asking whether I had anywhere I needed to be after the facial. I said no, just home to my husband and daughter. "Good," she said, with a little too much relief in her voice "because sometimes the warm Hungarian mud sometimes leaves people a bit pink. But don't worry, it goes away very quickly and leaves your skin feeling WONDERFUL!"She said the last word with extra emphasis, which is when I knew I was being set-up for a not-so-pleasant experience. It's the old, this is going to hurt but you'll be so glad you did it, warning.

And so she pasted the Hungarian Mud Mask on my face. "It's going to heat up and then back off after a minute or so. You may feel some tingling," she said. At first there was nothing and then I started to feel prickling (tingling wouldn't cover it.) Then the prickling turned to burning and the burning quickly intensified to proportions where it was no longer bearable. I felt as though I had just dipped my face into a vat of boiling water. "Warm" didn't cover it, "Hot" was an understatement. "They weren't kidding about the "fire" part!" I exclaimed after a minute or so and asked her to take it off early, which she did.

As I emerged from my "happy place" (the place I go when I'm trying to block out pain or discomfort - which, incidentally, is on a floaty, bobbing up and down on the sea in Jamaica) I realized that, even with the mask off, my skin was burning, tight, and felt puffy. "You're pink!" the esthetician said with glee. She said it like she would have if she had just pulled off the mask and seen that I transformed into Catherine Zeta Jones - like it was a really good thing. I wasn't buying it. Too much happy always raises red flags for me.

When it got to the "ice" part and she massaged my cheeks with ice cubes, I didn't feel significant relief. I didn't have a benefit of a mirror but I would have bet my last dollar that, at that moment, I looked as though I'd fallen asleep on a tanning bed. So I spent the rest of the facial, which could have been quite relaxing, stressing about what monstrosity would greet me in the mirror when I got out.

20 minutes later I found myself staring at my puffy, red skin in dismay. My face was burning and I had skunk eyes where she hadn't properly removed my make-up and had run a ring around them with the 'hot' mud. THANK GOD I didn't have dinner plans or something. I looked and felt hideous. On top of this, I was developing a headache.

"Oh, did you see yourself in the mirror?" the esthetician asked when I emerged from the room. "You're glowing!" Her forced excitement and positive spin left me with the feeling that they had had some complaints before and had instructed her to paint the pain and the redness as a good thing. Glowing was about right. Like a nuclear reactor!

After getting dressed and returning to the dressing room three times because I couldn't get my t-shirt on the right way (I was in a rush to get out of there and get some cold water on my face), it was time to pay. At the very least, I thought, I don't have to reach into my pocket for anything more than a tip. Which was when I pulled the $100 gift certificate out of my purse and noticed the little red writing on the back. "02/09/10 - $14 remaining" and some initials. Would you believe it, I had completely forgotten that I'd spent all-but $14 of the $100 gift certificate back in February! Which meant that I now had only $64 toward my $150 spa treatments. The rest, plus tip, I had to come up with myself.

I left $100 poorer, red in the face, and pissed that I had skipped a night with my daughter and husband (when family time is so precious these days as it is).

On the way home I blasted my face with cold air from the car's air conditioning and the redness did seem to improve, thankfully. But it took me using a mild cleanser of my own and my favorite moisturizer, to really feel as though I was back to normal.

The silver lining to this debacle? I woke up this morning and my back and hip feel fantastic. No idea what my fastidious, gay masseuse did but it worked!

Where is Travelvixen?

I'm here but just ridiculously busy lately, especially now the sun is out and I'm out of the house with the family, more than I'm home and inside. Plus, what 13 month old actually lets her mother sit at a computer and blog while she's around? Well, not mine!

In truth (although there is validity to all of that) I had been waiting to post a epiphanic entry about how I had managed to self-fix my hip and back issues after changing strategies for the 1,000th time about six weeks ago. Unfortunately, the epiphany wound up being nothing more than a pipe dream and, having bored myself to tears with all my whiney posts about S.I. this and nerve-pain that in the last year, I just couldn't bring myself to share the solemn news: said new strategy is an all-out failure. Pain is back with a vengeance along with muscle relaxers, anti-inflammatories, the PT exercises, and ice in the bucketload.

Blech. I'll post the details another time since I don't have the time or inclination to devote to the sorry story right now. Needless to say, strategy 1001 is now in full effect, which is basically strategy 999 revisted. Confused? Yeah, well you're probably about as confused as I am frustrated. Sigh.

Let's also not even mention the 6lbs of weight I've gained since I stopped posting my dieting progress on this site. That's just depressing... and shameful. It's not like I was even at my goal 6lbs ago!

Don't feel sorry for me, I'm soldiering on.

Other stuff preventing me from blogging is work. Work is busy. That's a good thing, by the way, especially when you're a commissioned sales person, so I'm not complaining. But it does mean that, instead of taking a 15 minute break mid-morning to post something fun or insightful here or on Lazy Crazy Daisy, I've been plonking away on the keyboard for profit. Then, at the end of the day, I'm so sick-to-death of staring at a computer screen, that I just can't bring myself to open the laptop back up to blog.

Then I'm still trying to have a social life, even though it's like planning a military operation just trying to get together with anyone in the summer. I honestly believe that they should oust all those top military dudes in Afghanistan and just hire a bunch of wives/mothers to plot western victory! Although I don't know what I'd do without my Outlook calendar and my android phone's calendar synchronization...

So, with all that said, I leave the end of this post without really having posted anything at all but with the hope that I'll have the time (and inclination) to share again soon.

Until then...

On the question of whether people are generally dishonest or just lazy...

... it seems that this new online company is banking on "lazy".

Tiger Tag Lost & Found Network

If you're the sort of person who reaches into your pocket for your cell only to realize you left it on the table at Starbucks, then for $1.99, you can get a sheet of "tags" to stick on your trusty iPhone that make it easy for anyone who finds it to return it to you without ever knowing your name or address.

I saw this new service on Kurt the Cyberguy's spot on Fox40 news this morning and think it's a pretty nifty idea. You know, one of those inventions that you think to yourself that you probably could have come up with yourself one sleepless night but never did? Sometimes the simplest things are the most ingenious.

Beyond the obvious benefits of coordinating the return of your prized posessions to you, TigerTag has really thought through how their service can integrate with other companies and agencies, as well as direct to consumer.

From their website:

To help you to get your lost items back, TigerTag operates a 24/7-service center for easy recovery. In partnership with Fedex we ensure that found items are returned promptly.

TigerTag collaborates with international, federal and local law enforcement and offer integration with national registries of stolen goods to ensure protection of your valuables.

Insurance companies benefit from collaboration with TigerTag, reducing the risk of theft and making the claims process much easier.

Last but not least, all manufacturers of consumer electronics that we work with benefit from providing superior service to their customers, offering the world's first global lost and found service for FREE.

Pretty cool! I'm thinking of signing Hubby up. He is definitely the sort to leave his things behind.

The stupid things we waste our time on

Santa Clara County bans toys in Happy Meals

Meanwhile, I read somewhere that an organization (whose name I can't remember) is trying to get a bill to the Senate to force food manufacturers to change the packaging on unhealthful items marketed to children in order to make them less attractive to them. On top of this the Federal Trade Commission is putting together an interagency task force to establish industry wide guidelines on child marketing.

Now, I generally have no problem with Big Brother breathing over my shoulder. Heck, if I'm not doing anything wrong, what do I have to worry about? And if I am? Well, serves me right. But there is a big difference between Big Brother and a Nanny State. A Nanny State I DO NOT DIG AT ALL. And here's why in this specific case: Children do not purchase Happy Meals or Fruit Loops, parents do.

I know that the argument is that these manufacturers market their sugary, fattening products to children in such a way that it places pressure on parents to purchase it for their children abd they've got a point - they do! My response to this, however is: AND SO WHAT? As a parent, I don't have to buy the darn things. If I think that something is bad for my child, I don't care how much she whines and whinges and begs and tells me her friends are doing it, I'm not going to allow her to have it (at least not routinely - a little of what we love but is bad for us, doesn't hurt occasionally.)

The way I see it, it's just like drugs and alcohol and cigarettes: your kids' food habits are like everything else we manage or influence as parents -I see it as part of my parental responsibility to ensure I teach Daisy what's right and good and what's not. Will she sneak behind my back as she gets older? Yes. Will she go over to her friends' house and eat things I would never normally give her? Sure. Will she tell me that I am the worst mother in the entire world? Probably. But you know, that's life - I can't control everything. But for 18 years I get to decide what's best for her as much as I possibly can. After that, of course, all I can hope for is that I've given her the right life tools to make good decisions completely independently.

What I will not be doing if she reaches 18 and turns into a cow, however, is blaming food manufacturers for corrupting her with their enticing marketing.

I'm not exactly sure what we're surprised or mad about. That's their job. They're trying to sell products and make a profit. The US is, after all, the capital of capitalism. Free market and all that. Trying to tell companies that make products for children to produce and/or market their products in such a way as to make the children not want them is pretty stupid if you ask me. And it boggles my mind that people are spending time on this when there are so many other important issues to tackle in our country than can have a far greater influence on the health and well-being on our kids, who are the stewards of our country's future.

How about the fact that education is underfunded and school programs like arts and sports are being cut? The next most influential people in our childrens' lives are teachers, the next most important building next to our homes is their school. Yet we're allowing local governments to slash budgets, lay off teachers (or pay them so little that nobody decent would want the job), and close good programs. How about that? Do you think the "Nanny State" could maybe look at ensuring that my child receives a well rounded education so that she can head-out into the world and make a positive impact?

In childhood obesity, as with many other social ills, there is a socioeconomic and educational divide: obesity rates are higher amongst the poor and the poorly educated. So perhaps we should focus on better educating the youth of today to ensure a healthier populous tomorrow, rather than punishing for-profit companies for doing the very thing they are structured to do - make a profit.

And, for heaven's sake, let's return a little bit of personal responsibility back into our community. Although I am very left-leaning in the majority of my politics, that doesn't mean that I believe that the government should manage every area of my life to the extent that I have no responsibility for my actions or the consequences thereof. Similarly, I do not believe that, in a capitalist society, the government should have the right to impede a company's ability to turn a profit because some mommy can't learn to say no to her child.

I DON'T GET IT!!!!

I have to confess that the new fad show, Glee, does nothing for me. It does not make me gleeful. It makes me confused and irritated. Confused because I don't understand what it's about or what the fuss is all about and irritated because everyone else can't stop FAWNING all over it on Facebook and making me feel as though I am sooooo uncool for not getting it. Ok, they're not making me feel that way - that's not their intention - but by default, I feel uncool because all my cool friends seem to like it. Is this some unique piece of Americana that this Brit cannot connect with? What's the deal, folks?

On a similar note, I'm usually somewhat in alignment with the judge's evaluations of contestants on American Idol but, again, I'm completely at a loss as to their adoration of Siobhan. I find her pretentious and, most importantly, lacking in talent. Her only claim to real fame is her mind-bending screeching - her poor attempt to somehow out-pizazz last year's runner-up, and my gay husband, Adam Lambert. As for the rest of her performance, she always sounds like she has to sing at half-power in order to stay in tune; if she really punched it, it seems, she would lose all control.

So, I'm officially forming the "Uncool people against Glee and Siobhan" club. Hubby is my first member. Any other takers?

Sometimes I feel like I'm from another planet. Oh, wait, I'm from England. Maybe that qualifies?

The dew did it

This morning, as I was working out on the eliptical machine, a local morning news program was covering the early morning set-up of a charity race. (I'm not sure exactly where it was or what the race was in aid of because I was, after all, working out.) Watching the set-up folks stride purposefully around in the dusk with a cell phone parked on one hip and a two-way radio parked on the other, really took me back to the days when I used to work in special events. And then there was the dew - the morning dew on the grass, that hinted at a chilly morning before a warm, sunny day. For some reason the dew just transported me back ten, twelve years.

I remember so many early Friday, Saturday, and Sunday mornings in a Southern California summer, bleary-eyed and chilly, working off of barely any sleep (because I'd been partying the night before), coming off the back of a month of 7-day weeks and 16-hour days, adrenaline pumping through my veins and a constant feeling of being behind, late, in a rush. People pulling at me from different directions, event staff who needed guidance, vendors who showed up nonchalantly late, and a sense of camaraderie with fellow event organizers who were equally as tired and yet amped-up at the same time.

Driving hours in the dark to parks and shopping centers and arenas without the aid of Google Maps and getting lost, walking miles back and forth from parking lots to booths, jumping in and out of 26 foot refrigerated trucks, loading and unloading with the guys, gossiping with the girls, drinking too much coffee and eating way too many donuts. Those were the days when duct tape and zip ties were my friends, when I attempted to dodge calls from my boss at all hours of the day or night - weekdays and weekends - and when I managed things (and people) I really had no idea about and yet jumped in the deep end and did it without a second thought anyway. Those were the mornings where I'd already done a full day by 10am and would find myself sitting in the cab of a truck with yet another cup of that coffee, desperately trying to muster the energy to make it through to the end of the day when we would repeat the whole shebang in reverse.

I miss it. In case you can't tell.

I miss the people I met (one of which was/is my husband), I miss the sense of accomplishment when it all came together, I miss the camaraderie of a team pulling together and working really hard under your leadership, and I miss the events themselves. True, they all started to look the same after a while, but it was cool to be "behind the scenes" and to see an event site come together bit-by-bit before a single attendee was even awake.



It feels like such another time, another place, and another me at this point.

Today's "English" lesson

Every gym has one (or a few)- the know-it-all, middle-aged guy who yells every conversation across the room. The kind of guy who remembers small details about people's lives ("how's that tomato plant doing, Tom?") in order to demonstrate how "popular" he is, uses sports trivia as a conversation starter ("Hey, Tom, how about those Patriots? Did you see Tom Brady's pass? Reminded me of Steve Grogan in 1978!") and the one who talks smack about his physical fitness while simultaneously yanking the crap out of his back on the rowing machine. Yup, that guy.

I usually put on my headphones and drown him out with NPR but today, for some reason, I just wasn't in the NPR "zone" so my ears were open for business.

Today's topic of conversation for Mr. Middle-Aged-Know-It-All, was his daughter's trip to England which she cancelled due to the volcanic ash cloud.

He said (loudly, of course), and I quote: "She was supposed to go to England but she made a change at the last minute and ended up in Mexico instead. The funny thing was that her flight actually managed to land in 'Gul-asa-COW. But 'Gul-asa-COW' was a few hours north of London, so she would have had a three hour drive when she landed anyway."

I was busy doing crunches on my ball but I had to stop for a second to process. What did he say? "GulasaCOW?" What the hell town is he butchering?

It really took me thirty seconds or so to process, going through the list of English airports where I know international flights land (Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham, Manchester), and then finally heading up north to realize that the jackass meant GLASGOW. Ya know, that po-dunk place, population 700,000, that is the largest city in SCOTLAND?

Um... wow. The guy actually made it sound like it belonged in Eastern Europe, adding a "u" out of nowhere and rhyming it with Krakow or Moscow (at least the U.S. pronounciation of Moscow, with "cow" at the end, as opposed to "coe", which is how they say it in England.)

And that's just the pronounciation faux pas. There's the country faux-pas and the geographical faux-pas to also address.

For those Americans who haven't taken the time to study it, here is a quick nationality lesson about my home country.

1) England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland are separate countries. Scotland is not a part of England. Wales is not a part of England. Northern Ireland is not a part of England.

2) "Britain" or "Great Britain" refers to England, Wales, and Scotland together.

3) The "United Kingdom" refers to England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland together. The official term (and what is written on my passport) is "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."

4) Further, there is also the geographical term "The British Isles", which includes everything in #3 but also 500 surrounding islands, that include The Isle of Man, which has its own laws and parliament.

Ok, I realize this can be confusing but at least grasping #1 and #2 should be standard. Although I lived in England for 21 years before I moved here, I at least understood that, while America was interchangeably called "America", the "U.S." and "USA", that there was a continent called America, that there was a North and South to it, and that the USA didn't refer to Mexico and Canada. You see my point, I hope.

We also have to add to this the geographical obliviousness. Glasgow is about 400 miles from London or a 7 hour drive. Saying that you're going to "England" and flying into Glasgow is like saying you're going to Mexico then flying into Santa Barbara. I'm not sure whether this guy's daughter was equally as ignorant but, if she was, I would have pitied her arriving in Glasgow only to have to drive 7 hours go get to her final destination.

Of course, I was tempted to assert my own superiority in this particular area of knowledge but I don't talk to people at the gym, whenever possible. First of all, it's 5am and my social skills don't activate for at least another two hours and secondly, I didn't want to get friendly with this guy because then I'm stuck with sharing banalities with him every morning from hereon out.

Why I don't bother traveling in the U.S.

In short, it's too frickin' expensive.

I've been spending some time thinking about our next trip and originally I had promised Hubby that this year (after Jamaica, which was supposed to be last year anyway) we would stay closer to home to save money.

Well, that's not going to work.

It's not going to work because 4 nights in Monterey is just as expensive (in some cases, if not more so) as almost a whole week, all inclusive, in Mexico or the Caribbean. So, why exactly would I travel down the street, where I see the same old chain stores and restaurants, when I can get a real break

Vacation deals for $521 - flight plus 4 nights in an all inclusive resort!

Ok, so granted, we could stay in a Motel 8 in Monterey and eat at Subway but, at that rate, I'd rather stay home.

Guess it's too soon to put our passports away for the year after all...

Exactly

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Getting some adult time - Jamaica Part 3

I know - it's been more than a week since I got home and I'm still not done talking about vacation. In my defense, after I stopped my travel reportage for my Belize trip a few years ago, mid-stream, I received a lot of comments from friends crying foul. So this time I am determined to finish up. (Although I haven't exactly received much feedback on the other two posts, so maybe I'm talking to thin air...)

In the previous two posts I talked about the challenges, as well as joys, of traveling with an infant. However, it wasn't all about Ms. Daisy. Granted, mostly, but not all.

Since we had Nan and Grandad with us on our trip, we requested adjoining rooms so that we would have the flexibility to go somewhere and hang out whenever Daisy went down for naps. This meant that, after we put her down at night, we could tip our hat to Mum and Dad next door and head out for a moonlit walk on the beach. This was something we would do before turning in at night when we had visited Negril as a couple and so it was one thing we could hold onto from our previous trips.

The waves are so light in Bloody Bay (the stretch of beach our hotel, present and past, was located on) that you don't really hear the sea until you're right next to it. Even then it is a gentle lapping versus the crashing and rushing most of us are used to on the Pacific or Atlantic coasts. So, at night the beach is pretty quiet, well patrolled by the security guards of the side-by-side resorts, and absent the guests who are mostly being entertained further back within the hotel somewhere.

Despite there being five resorts stretched out around the large bay, there are very few electric lights - just a couple near the guard stations and a few that peek through the palm trees from the resorts themselves. This leaves most of the beach glowing a gray blue with merely the light of the moon. Up above you can see what must be every star in the sky twinkling back at you. On our last night it was a full moon, which was so bright that the palm trees cast shadows on the beach. I wish I was better with my camera settings and had brought my tripod with me as it really was something I would love to have captured.

Sitting on a beach lounger with nobody else around, sand in our toes, and only the sound of the sea licking at the beach, we would talk about our vacations past and present; about how cool it was to share our favorite place in the world (to date) with our daughter and how we looked forward to educating her in the school of life through our future travels. Sometimes we wouldn't say anything at all, just enjoying one another's company and taking in the moment. It's times like this that make me so happy that I married my best friend. It's not like we never argue, disagree or get on one another's nerves (because we do) but, on the whole, we are in-synch, on the same page, and enjoy many of the same things. Those things matter when you travel and they give you moments like we had on our last night sitting in the shadow of a palm tree, cast by a bright blue moon.

Then there was the evening we were sitting on the beach and listening to the live reggae coming from the resort stage. In vacations past we would be perched right in front of the stage, cocktail in hand, getting up to dance once in a while. This year, not so. Entertainment didn't really kick-in until 9:30pm and by then Daisy was crispy-creamed, even with the benefit of the two hour time difference. For a while we were ok with straining to hear the familiar songs from afar and then I heard a familiar bass line from "Welcome to Jamrock" by Damian Marley. It wasn't that big in the U.S. but it sure was in Jamaica. The first year we came to Jamaica, in December of 2005 for New Year and right after we got engaged, they played Welcome to Jamrock at the huge New Year party. Literally every Jamaican in the house - no matter what they were doing, cooking, serving drinks, waiting on tables - dropped what they were doing, rushed the stage and started getting down. And of course, they can all dance. (Why is that!?) Although we'd never heard that song before, they lifted us up with their enthusiasm. It was a very cool sight and we never forgot that song. So, when I heard the familiar bassline, I grabbed hubby's hand and pulled him off the beach so we could hear better.

We didn't want to go too far from the room and so we found ourselves standing on the pathway from our room block, arms wrapped around one another, bopping up and down to the song. Nobody else was around; it was our own private party. Man, I love Jamaica.

We also couldn't end our vacation without a visit to the legendary Rick's Cafe, at the tip of the island - a fifteen minute taxi ride from our resort. Although we saw folks there with babies, having been there before, we knew it was going to be too loud and too busy to be able to coral Daisy there, so we used it as the perfect opportunity to participate in date night.


Me and Hubby @ Rick's.

Rick's is one of those places that is famous for being famous, somewhat, but it doesn't dent the experience any. Perched on the edge of a cliff with uninterrupted views out over the Carribbean and to the horizon, people mainly go to Rick's for sunset. For the two hours prior to sunset and then about thirty minutes thereafter, it's the hottest ticket in Jamaica. As their website says, the crowd runs the gamut from Rastas to Rolexes, making it a great people-watching spot.


Hubby watching the sun set.

There is also a spot for cliff-diving (from tame to absolutely freaking crazy in height) and once every thirty minutes or so some nutty Jamaican dudes show off for tips by diving from a teeny branch of a thirty foot tree, directly into the rocky abyss below.




Here is the lowest spot from which you could dive. On the upper left, where you see the cliff disappear off the shot, is the highest spot. People line up to leap off there, although we saw some folks chicken-out at the last minute. The Jamaican hanging from the tree is above that spot. So yeah, he really is nuts.

Finally, as if all that weren't enough, there is a stage with live music every night. Usually it's the in-house reggae band but on this particular night it was an infamous local female steel drum band that, quite frankly ROCKED.


You can see video of the group in action here - I was having trouble embedding the html in the blog for some reason.

Rick's was the perfect ending to our vacation. On a week that had been all about our daughter, we got to spend some time just being a couple again.

All of that and we still got back to the resort in time for dinner and a bath with Daisy. Perfect!

When "No Problem" becomes a problem - Jamaica Part Two

Man, I've had this past week of to spend with Daisy and I've been pooped by the end of the night, unable to get to a blog post. As for trying to blog when Ms. Daisy is around - FUGGHEDABOUDIT! The minute I sit in front of the this laptop, she starts tugging on my leg and whining. When I don't respond, she begins banging her head against the underside of the dining room table. Yeah, I know, extreme. She has a knack for drama, this kid. Hence, it's taking a while to bash-out these posts. (I guess it comes down to the posts or Daisy's head.)

So, where did we leave off? Ahh.... Daisy pooped. Bag with formula and diapers safely in our posession. Settled in paradise. What else is there to report?

Well, I did a quick post on Lazy Crazy Daisy about Daisy's experience in Jamaica. Needless to say that we fully expect Daisy to turn 18, move to Jamaica, and produce a beautiful mixed-race grandchild.. That aside, I'm left with reportage on things from the parental side. So, let's talk about high chairs.

Yes, these posts are about how travel has changed since we have become parents and the high chair situation in our hotel underscores one of the problems you just don't think about when you're packing your suitcase.

As you can see from this picture, Daisy had a lovely green, plastic high chair which she ate most of her meals on...



Unfortunately, there was only one of these high chairs in residence. Every other high chair in the resort was wooden and not one of them - that's right, NOT A ONE - had a restraint that wasn't broken. That includes no strap around the crotch area.

For the first couple of days, we made do, wrangling Daisy as she twisted and turned in the defective wooden high-chairs. Then, on our third night, while eating dinner, Ms. Daisy arched her back just the right way and went sliding down and underneath the front bar. THANK GOD, Hubby and I were seated either side of her at the time and reacted in unison, grabbing her just as her chin was about to get wrenched upwards on the underside of the bar. A second later and she would have been on the floor!

A sigh of relief was had by all that she was not hurt, although she cried with shock for a minute or two, but from that moment forward we obviously refused to use the wooden high chairs. Sadly, the "no problem" attitude we love about the Jamaicans, extended to their reaction when we told them what happened. There was generally a lack of concern that no suitable high chairs were available and a shrug of the shoulders - "those are the only ones we have" - when we tried to urge them to find something else. Despite our complaints, nothing was ever done to make those high chairs safe or to replace them. In looking around, most other parents either seemed to have lobbied for the green plastic high chair or fed their babies in their stroller (not do-able for Daisy who wants to be at table level.) As my Dad quite rightly pointed out, all he would have needed was some tools and some straps and it would have taken him 10 minutes to jimmy-rig something suitable.

So we resorted to heavily tipping the good wait staff who did seem to give a shit, making sure that the one green high chair (in 5 restaurants!) was set-aside and found for us each time. Sadly, money talks.

In the U.S., someone would have sued by now but in Jamaica I doubt most people working at the hotel have ever seen a high chair outside of the resort, probably think our kids are all spoiled and that we should be greatful they have a special chair at all. I was talking to the lady a the photo desk one day and she told me that just to buy a plane-ole run-of-the-mill umbrella stroller in Jamaica, it costs $200. Yes, $200 for that stroller we can pick up at BabiesRUs for $30-$50. Crazy. Based upon that, I can only imagine how much a high chair would cost.

We do plan to write to the Riu corporate office, however, because those chairs remain a danger. It's only a matter of time before someone's baby gets seriously hurt.

Who moves furniture at 11pm???

The only other complaint we had about the resort was how thin the walls and ceilings were and how loud (Holy Cow LOUD!), the hotel room doors were when they closed. Unless you took extreme care to close it slowly, there was pretty much no way not to close the door without making it sound like you slammed it. And with all the rooms and hallways having tile floors, the sound of doors closing in our block just constantly echoed around the hotel through the day and night.

Usually, when you're traveling without an infant, these are things you notice in passing. However, when you're thinking about getting your baby down for a nap, or keeping her down after putting her to sleep for the night, every noise becomes a nuisance. For the most part, we tried to keep a balance between understanding that people just need to get on with their business and being irritated when staff or guests abused the privilege - such as the turn-down maids that yelled down the hallway to one another at 10:30pm at night. What we learned for the future was to be adament about getting a room away from all major thoroughfares, at the edge of the resort, and ON THE TOP FLOOR. Because...

What we couldn't ignore, was the constant furniture rearrangement that would go on every single night in the room directly above us.

Every night, sometime around 11pm, the people above us would return to their room and would begin playing musical chairs with the furniture, scraping all manner of items across the tile floor for a good 30-45 minutes. After two nights of this, and after Hubby and I returned from our night time walk on the beach, I lost my cool. I flew through our hotel door before Hubby could say a word to stop me, ran down the hallway, flew up the stairs, and knocked angrily on the room above.

A guy answered through the door asking me what I wanted and I asked him exactly when he was going to quit scraping furniture across the floor and allow us to sleep. He opened the door a crack and said that he and his family were just getting out the trundle bed for his kids and were then going to sleep. There was no way on earth that this process would have taken 30 minutes every night and plus why couldn't they do this at 7pm before they went to dinner? Grrr! Unfortunately, despite my visit, this irritation continued throughout our vacation. Fortunately, Ms. Daisy slept through it all, although slightly disturbed from time-to-time, leaving us all to wonder why the hell we bother to creep around after she goes to bed at home. (We now don't, by the way.)

Tomorrow I'll quit the complaining and talk about some of the fun things that Hubby and I got up to, minus Ms. Daisy. Despite this vacation being about initiating our daughter into the world of travel, beach laziness, and reggae, we did find ways to enjoy the "other" Jamaica - the one with just the two of us and a gently lapping Carribbean sea. Ya mon!

Vacationing with an infant is like having sex - Jamaica Part One

OK, not the comparison you were expecting but hear me out....

Vacationing with an infant is a lot like having sex because it's never as perfect as in the movies but, once you let go of that idealized vision and live in the moment, there are an awful lot of great 'moments' to enjoy.

Our week in paradise was definitely not perfect and we had to make some adjustments based upon previous trips: there was none of that idle floating in the ocean and topping off our tan (we barely got a tan); we didn't do any exciting excursions (in fact, we barely left the resort); and we spent more time in our room than we ever have before (3-4 hours a day just for naps). Yet, it was all worth it.

The moment we landed in Montego Bay with our smiling munchkin, a lump swelled up in my throat and I was filled with joy: I said I was going to travel with my baby abroad and I said I would be back to Jamaica... and there we were! Then, as I waded into the calm, aqua-blue sea with Daisy in my arms, I think a tear even escaped my eye. Just under two years ago, Hubby and I left that same stretch of beach in Negril having celebrated making it through my hip surgery, and in month one of trying to get pregnant. The very next month Daisy was conceived. And now there we were with our beautiful daughter, sharing our favorite place in the world with her. There is nothing like sharing the things you love with your kids, I have discovered. Jamaica is just the first of many places I'm excited to show her as she grows.

That car seat saved our sanity


Thank GOD for binkies!

After we changed our vacation dates last December, our flights ended up being a tad cheaper and so we put some of the remaining credits toward a seat for Daisy vs. putting her on our lap. Since she is now walking (vs. just crawling in December) it was the best decision we have ever made. Let me say this now, unquivocally: I WILL NEVER FLY WITH DAISY WITHOUT BUYING HER A SEAT.

Maybe you have a kid that will happily sit on your lap for a few hours at a time and play with you, or snuggle in your arms when he/she is sleepy. If so, I'm happy for you. Save the money and don't bother with the seat. However, I do not. Daisy is a physically active, wriggly, independent and wilfull child. I wouldn't have her any other way but putting her on my (or anyone else's) lap for 4 hours at a time would have been a complete and utter nightmare - for us and everyone else on the plane.

Even with the seat, the most amount of sleep we got out of Daisy (usually an excellent sleeper) was an hour and a half per flight - and that was even with with doing a red-eye! The rest of the three or so hours was spent trying to get her to sleep, reading, singing to her, or walking up and down with her. Of course, it didn't help that, on the way out, we got stuck right at the back of the plane next to the engine (holy noise, Batman!) and right where everyone was coming and going from the bathroom.

Inbetween flights we didn't get much respite either. The two or so hour layovers we had in Atlanta consisted of giving Daisy the much-needed freedom from her seat that she needed to make it through the next flight. Pretty much what this meant was popping some shoes on her and letting her run wild through the terminal, Nanny usually in tow. It was pretty hilarious to see our little 30 inch munchkin toddling through a sea of passengers.

In short, it was hard work. But, for the most part, we avoided screaming fits and melt-downs. For that reason, we're calling the traveling part a success. Ms. Daisy made it through a four hour flight, a two hour layover, another two and a half hour flight, then a ninety minute taxi ride to the hotel and arrived with a smile on her face, ready for a dip in the ocean. A parent can't ask for much more from an eleven month old.

A rocky start

Having made it through the mammoth day of travel, we arrived into our room with a huge sigh of relief. First things first, we set about unpacking and getting all the miscellaneous baby paraphinalia organized - diapers, wipes, formula, bottles, onesies, toys, dolls, books... Except... We were missing a duffel bag. Yes, we had managed to leave the airport and get all the way to the hotel without realizing we had completely forgotten one of our bags. In our defense, we had seven bags and a stroller between the five of us. But, of course, we missed the biggie - the bag with the formula and the diapers in it. The only two things we knew we absolutely HAD TO make sure got to Jamaica because who knows what they use in Jamaica!?

Mortified, I called the airline and they were able to confirm that the bag did indeed make it safely to Jamaica and that it had never cleared security, meaning we had indeed just left it on the carousel. Unfortunately the Delta rep couldn't get a hold of the baggage claim in Montego Bay and couldn't find out if they were willing to deliver it to our hotel - the usually do not but given the critical nature of the contents, the rep was hoping they would make an exception. He told me that the phone just kept ringing, ringing, ringing without answer but that he would put in a request for them to help us out. However, if we didn't hear from them in an hour and a half, he suggested we go back to the airport (a 90 minute, $80 cab ride each way!) to retrieve it personally. This was at 1pm and the baggage claim closed at 5pm. Knowing the laissez-faire, "no problem" attitude of Jamaicans, we weren't holding out much hope for them to answer the phone or deliver the bag. So Hubby took it upon himself to bite the bullet and head back to the airport. After a hair-raising cab-ride and the greasing of some Jamaican palms, he did indeed locate and obtain the much-needed luggage but it meant he was gone for a good few hours on our first day of vacation.

Pooped

Despite missing a Daddy, we headed out to the beach anyway, where we quickly learned that our visions of making sandcastles on the beach with Daisy were unrealistic. Daisy thought that sand made a better snack than building material and she was more interested in picking up handfulls (or bucketfulls) of it and dropping it on her head, than being artistic. It ended up in her hair, her ears, her mouth, her eyes... pretty much everywhere. Which made her mad. But not as mad as she was when we tried to take her off the beack. OMG, that was a doozy of a tantrum.

Oh, and let's not forget how much we DID NOT LIKE being slathered with sunscreen or having a hat put on our head. It took us two days to get her to accept a sun hat and the bucket was quickly relegated to the "too young for that" pile.


A rare moment on day one with our hat. I think she whipped it off shortly after this pic.



After our sand excursion, Daisy finally pooped out on my chest in a darkened hotel room (thank goodness for black-out curtains!) After a while I rolled her onto the bed where she stayed for more than two hours, totally comatose. Bless!



Yawn... more tomorrow...

A shot in the ass

Not the metaphorical kind but the literal kind.

Today, my doctor decided to finally listen to me.

After asking me every week if was "80% better? 90% better?" I finally stopped him and said, "You KEEP ASKING ME THAT! I know you WANT ME to be 90% better - I do too - but I'm not and I don't see any point in lying about it."

That stopped him in his tracks. He ditched his rush-rush attitude, sat on the table and looked at me. I breathed a sigh of relief. Dude, I've been trying to tell you I AM NOT SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER!

I explained the process of how my PT had stopped my previous relief strategies in their tracks when she diagnosed me with the SI joint problem and how that had increased my pain and created new pains because now I no longer had my short-fix, self-help treatments. I told him that yes, indeed, some of that had subsided but the fact remains that I have so many different pains that fluctuate on a day-by-day, week-by-week basis, as well as the original pains I visited him with initially, that's hard to say exactly what percent better I am. Depending on what measure you're using I could actually say I'm WORSE!

His feeling was that I was somehow stuck. I've done so much, had so many different kinds of treatments (CONTINUE to have many different kinds of treatments) and, while I may be progressing, it definitely seems as though something is getting in the way of me making that switch into real recovery.

I was all, like, WELL YES! THAT'S WHY I'M HERE!

In all fairness, I'm a new patient to him. He's been dealing with me since Feb 1, I've been dealing with me and this hip thing since October '05.

So, we skipped the osteo manipulation for today, since I don't think all that cracking was helping anyway. Doc asked me where the majority of the pain seemed to start from, where the worst of it was and I pointed to my right butt cheek - for the anatomically correct, my piriformis area. It pretty much never stops aching, being sore, and/or burning. He pushed in there too and agreed that it definitely felt hard and tight. (Again, I'm all like, YES, THAT'S WHAT I SAID!)

Then he suggested a cortisone shot. At which point my hands began to sweat, I began to hyperventilate and I said something pathetic like "I don't do needles. I don't do needles!" Despite his assertion that I "wouldn't feel it" (when do you never not feel a needle piercing your skin!?) I was still mentally figuring out how to get out of there without getting stabbed. Yet, he made a good point: I've tried everything else and if I want to get better I need to try everything. It could be that I have a chronically tight piriformis muscle and no amount of therapy is going to release it. The cortisone shot could be just the thing to chill things out and allow other affected parts to release, heal, and get better.

I had to admit that he was right and, with Jamaica looming on the horizon, the prospect of some relief for my vacation without hours and hours of working out or icing, sounded very attractive. So, I just made the decision there and then to do it. JUST DO IT! No pontificating or working myself up, get that damn needle in my ass, stat!

As it goes, it didn't hurt that bad. It did hurt though. But, I've had worse. (Obvy... I've had a hip surgery and a c-section.)

Doc said that my SI ligament is VERY tight (pregnancy?) and that this could actually have more to do with my pain than any skeletal misalignment. (I like the sound of that.) So, we're going to see how these cortisone injections work and he's going to do some specific manipulation when I come back, just for the SI ligament. In the meantime, no PT, light stretching and rest for my poor sore butt.

Am I noticing any difference? Sure, in the department of less stiffness/aching but right now my butt is sore from the jab itself, so it might be a day or so before I feel the real benefit.

I also had another Alexander Technique appointment today. Despite my mixed feelings from the last one, I actually felt like we made progress today, finding some key elements to my posture puzzle. Pelvic floor muscles and illiopsoas need to be engaged. This totally connected for me because I've had problems with tightness in these places also. Engaging these areas immediately lifted me off my lower back, made me feel taller, and reduced my heel-fall impact while I was walking. Amazing! Everything started feeling much more natural!

We also practiced standing up, sitting down, bending over, and picking up weights using the same techinques and I immediately felt the difference, as opposed to my back taking the weight. Next appointment, in two weeks, we'll get into picking up less stable weights of like, oh, well, 20lbs. I wonder why....?

God Insurance

Why does religion sometimes leads people to throw all common sense and judgment out the window?

Although this kind of thing may sound like a good idea on the surface, the reality is that one big chronic illness could send this whole thing toppling down and leave someone who is really ill and in need of care, with crippling medical bills. Not only does not having health insurance mean there is no legal guarantee of coverage (or, at least as much guarantee as you have under the current system where insurance companies frequently find technicalities to avoid paying their bills) but it also means that, as individual purchasers of medical services, these people do not have the collective bargaining power to negotiate better rates. So, they're probably paying the highest price for the services they receive.

Add to that the fact that many health providers these days (as I found out during my mother's hip surgery) do not actually take cash patients any more, and you've got a recipe for disaster. Meanwhile, that person will be left with the inability to find private medical insurance that will cover them because their condition will be then classed as "pre-existing" and no profit-hungry insurer will touch that with a 12-foot bargepole.

Now, I don't know about you but, unless God is thinking of planting money trees sometime soon, I don't think faith alone can solve those problems.

A great quote

Today I stumbled upon a great travel-related quotation that I wanted to share.

I don't get to travel as much as I would like to these days. I laugh as I write this because I didn't get to travel as much as I wanted to before I had a baby, or a mortgage, or a full-time job with vacation time to worry about. So now, with all the trappings of the regular family life, it's more difficult than ever.

The reality is that I love travel so much that I have never yet had the opportunity to test my limits or stretch my boundaries. In this, as in many other areas of my life, I often feel like a big elastic band that has only been pulled to 30% of it's stretching capacity. Some days I feel like I go through life on auto-pilot, going through the motions, doing the same things over-and-over again, seeing the same people, watching the same TV shows, eating the same food... Sometimes the comfort of the familiar is nice but, periodically throughout the year, I get a severe case of cabin fever and need a new environment, a break from the norm.

It's been about 15 months since I left this country, and almost two years since I took a real foreign vacation (the other time was to my other home - the UK), so, this quotation hit home today.

"Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken." -- Frank Herbert

Of course, it doesn't just apply to traveling but to life in general. It reminds me to keep challenging myself, to wake-up my mind, and therefore wake-up my spirits.

Something to think about as we head into Q2 this year.

An apology to my readers (should there be any remaining)

I have just noticed that my last six bazillion posts are either about my hip or my weight.

So, this is just a quick post to apologize to any of you left out there who may still be reading this blog and hoping (against all hope) that I will find something new to "rant" about.

At one point this blog was about travel and politics and opinions and interesting stuff like that. Now it's just a sad reflection of what my life has become - a merry-go-round of medical appointments and sulking.

Must do better. In life as well as on blog.

Stay tuned...

Recovery is time consuming

I've been too busy recently to blog about what's going on, specifically with my hips problems, so it's time for a recap.

Last week I had my first Alexander Technique appointment. For those of you who have absolutely no idea what this is and are perhaps wondering if I'm heading for a bionic hip or something, here is a brief synopsis of what the AT is and why I'm trying it.

Using the description from the official website: "an Alexander Technique teacher helps you to identify and lose the harmful habits you have built up over a lifetime of stress and learn to move more freely." So, basically, someone takes a look at your body mechanics, the way you move, the way you sit, your posture, and helps you to be in a more natural alignment, thus helping you to mitigate muskuloskeletal pain caused by your misalignment. This, of course, is a gross oversimplification of what this process is all about but, unless you're really into it, I think that description suffices for the purpose of this post. If you want to know more, you can visit the Alexander Technique website at http://www.alexandertechnique.com.

The Alexander Technique has been around since the 1800s, when it was created by it's namesake, Frederick Matthias Alexander but I learned about it from my friend, E, of The Gurly Life, who has been suffering from the same hip and SI Joint issues as I have. It's not new news to me that my posture leaves a lot to be desired and, after hearing consistently from my physical therapist that I have the body mechanics of a rag doll, I felt the time was right to add Alexander to my treatment strategy.

As I live in the Sacraghetto area, I am not blessed with an awful lot of options when it comes to these alternative treatment options. So, I had the grand choice of one AT teacher within 100 miles. For the purposes of this blog, we'll call him Jim, although that's not his real name.

Jim works out of a granny annex at the back of his home and it did occur to me briefly, as I walked down the residential driveway, that I could be heading into the lair of a sex offender or something. Fortunately, although Jim is indeed 'weird' (at least by my definition of the word), he appears to be safe. Jim's 'weirdness' comes from his posture, general demeanor and the way he speaks. The first thing that bothered me is that he holds himself like a caveman, with long arms that seem to hang limply from his shoulders and large hands that almost brush his knees when he walks. This wasn't very encouraging, since I was there to learn 'better' posture from this guy - developing the gait of a prehistoric cavewoman wasn't on my list of goals for the year. (I know, right?) Secondly, Jim has this presence about him that is very... superior and supercilious, let's call it, but in that quiet and self-contained way that makes you think that he spends all day meditating, eating willow bark, and avoiding any and all stress in life.

I may be over-reaching in my first impressions, but it seems like Jim lives his life in a bubble of calm, peace, and ease, and feels a level of disdain and pity for the rest of us who run around in our complicated lives, stressing ourselves out with roller-coaster emotions, and poor habits. He obviously sees his work as an AT teacher, as a way to preach a better way and I guess that's where I had a problem connecting with him. His teaching felt borderline creepy-religious-cult. I know I'm over-reacting here, because I don't think at all that this guy is dangerous, but I'm just trying to convey the reasons why he irritated me.

Now, I'd like to be clear in this - I don't aspire to live a life of calm, peace, and ease. Really. I mean it. The very thought makes me want to puke with panic. I like roller-coasters, both literally and figuratively. I never feel more alive than when I'm zooming through the air on some crazy theme-park contraption, the wind whipping at my face and adrenaline rushing through my body. I don't want to live my life on a flat-line - I'm ok with ups and downs because the downs make the ups so much sweeter, and the ups make the downs bearable. I recognize that's not for everyone - some people prefer to live life on a calmer sea - but that's me. And for some reason, people like Jim just freak me out. I have a phobia of those quiet, self-contained, calm people. I think part of me fears that they're really just bottling it all up and that, at some point, it's all going to come bubbling over in some major, psychotic breakdown. Emotions - both high and low - are natural and it seems unnatural (and dangerous) to me, that someone can regulate their emotional self to such an extent that they never really display or experience extreme joy or sadness. Ok, psychoanalyze this all you want, it is kind of an oddity I'll admit but not something I plan on stewing over. So let's move on...

The point is that it was hard to settle into the advice I was getting from Jim because of how I felt about him. However, I did get some good nuggets that make sense and that I have been trying to deploy into my regular day.

Our spine (neck to tailbone) is connected, not just in a literal sense, but in a behavioral sense also. Meaning, what you do at the top of your spine affects everything below it, and visa versa. This may sound simple and obvious but it's more than that. For instance, if you let your chin jut and/or down out when you're stressed or thinking, it not only affects your neck and upper back (which is a no-brainer) but it throws off your entire balance because now your whole spine has to readjust to balance your head (which, let's face it, is a big-ole thing on your shoulders) resulting in unnatural load bearing in different areas of your back and the connecting muscles. It's these types of readjustments that result in chronic pain. Your body, over time, unlearns the way to be in balance, the way our skeleton was designed. Our muscles start taking over from our skeleton, to do the job of holding us upright, and - hey presto! - all sorts of odd (painful) things happen.

Personally, my poor habits include hyperextending and locking out my legs when I stand, over-arching my back, curving my shoulders, and (at the same time) driving my heel into the ground ahead of me when I walk. This last one is important because, what this means in relation to all my other body mechanics, is that I am literally driving the head of my femur into my hip socket with force, every time I take a step. OUCH! All the other stuff amounts to me placing too much load on my lower back. What feels like a "natural" or "upright" posture for me, is actually leaning back. When readjusted for 'neutral', I feel like I am leaning forward. It's the craziest thing! So, I have to re-learn standing, sitting, and walking (amongst other things.)

Jim actually told me to watch Daisy walk because, obviously, her body mechanics have not been contaminated by modern life... yet. She walks with her head leading and her body following, almost as if she is about to fall forward at any time. Although this may be an extreme example of what I need to do, the basis for my new posture is right there: lead with my head, not my feet. There's a lot more involved in it than that, of course, stuff about pausing, giving my body directions, "letting my neck be freeeeee!", looking down from my ears (!), and pulling back my ribs to name a few, but essentially that's the primary guiding factor. (And yes, I did feel and look a bit like a prehistoric cavewoman in the "ideal" posture. I think I'm going to have to modify it a bit to suit me, for vanity purposes!)

After all the walking and sitting instruction, I got to lay down with my head balancing on a paperback book, knees up. Again, my instruction was to let my neck be "freeeee" and to lengthen my spine through relaxation. My homework was to do this for 15 minutes a day every day. Something which I just haven't found the time to do. I guess I could be doing it now instead of blogging, so maybe I don't really have an excuse. Drats!

Add this to my physical therapy exercises and appointment, doctor appointments, and other miscellaneous advice about how to move, bend-down, stand, roll-over, sit-up etc... and it's all a little overwhelming.

I've calculated that, if I did everything the physical therapist and Jim tells me to do, I'd spend approximately 4 hours each day just working on my recovery. Who has that kind of time when you have a full time job and are the mother of an 11 month old??? It's like having a second, part-time job!

That four hours breaks down into:

• 20 minutes of physical therapy exercises 3x per day
• 20 minutes of laying down, icing my back, 3x day
• 15 minutes of AT head-on-book balancing 1x per day
• PLUS, at least one hour per day, most days, at appointments for either my doctor (who I see for osteopathic manipulation once per week), my physical therapist (who I see 3x per week), and now Jim (one time per week + 30 minutes drive-time each way.)

All that time comes out of somewhere and none of these folks take appointments outside of business hours, so, I have to take early or late lunches, resulting in things like me eating pre-packed salads in the bathroom while trying to shower.

As I said, this is not to mention the almost-impossibility of trying to remember all the other advice about my general, everyday movements. Trying to go through a 3-step, back-friendly process just to bend down and pick something up off the floor, kind of just flies out the window when it's your daughter reaching for a choking hazard. It's ok when you have the time to remember it but, for the most part, I'm too busy to spend time thinking for ten minutes every time I move a body part. I try but it's an imperfect science right now. I guess I would say that I'm learning to be more aware of what I'm doing, when I'm doing it, which is a start.

Adding to this, I am trying to re-incorporate some yoga back into my routine every day. I know my physical therapist said no yoga but she isn't a yoga practitioner and I think (from what she has said to me) she has a shallow understanding of the discipline, reducing it to all those power-hot-yoga classes, taught by a svelte 20-something, who understands little-to-nothing about proper body mechanics. Good yogis spend years and years refining their technique and understanding of the human body and there are certain sectors of yoga that place strict emphasis on proper posture and alignment, most specifically Iyengar yoga, which is what my friend, E, practices. So, I found a book on yoga and back pain using Iyengar principles and which has a section on SI Joint Dysfunction. On Monday I started (slowly and gently and cautiously) adding some of the positions into my evening workout routine. My other goal is to find a weekend or evening class locally that I can attend, where I can get some one-on-one instruction (which has really helped E) but finding that in the Sacraghetto area is proving to be hard and, anyway, when on earth would I fit it in????

Then there's the cost.

Each doctor's visit is $25, each physical therapy visit is $45 and each Alexander Technique appointment is $70. Add that up and I'm already spending a wopping $230 a week on these treatments! I could literally go broke just trying to get healthy.

It would all be easier to bear if I were feeling any significant difference in my pain but I'm not. The only improvement that I have noticed is a reduction in the shooting, nerve-related pain that was occasionally going down my thigh and into my ankle. I'm still left with a sore low back, a sore right butt cheek, a very, very sore outer thigh (from a tight IT band) and soreness and twinges in my inner thigh/groin, as well as around my hip flexors/psoas.

I keep telling myself that I have been experiencing this chronic pain for years and so it's going to take more than weeks to undo all the damage and compensation and bad habits but, as much as that makes sense rationally, emotionally (and financially!) you need to see results to keep plugging forward on the same path. I've been with this new diagnosis and treatment plan for 5 weeks now and I would have thought I would be feeling more of an improvement than I have.

My doctor seems to bear this out because, every Monday when I see him, he asks me how much better I am doing (as a percentage). Each week he sayes something like: "So, are you 70% better? 80%?" and each week I reply with "No, more like 30%." I get the feeling he thinks that I am being obstinate or difficult but really what's the point in lying? 30% may even be overstating it, quite frankly.

I veer from despondent to hopeful on any day in any given week. My hope comes from my friend, E, who has battled this and come out the other side. My despondency comes from my lack of time to really do everything I need to do, the cost, the slow (if at all existent) progress, and the repeated pattern of pain. It's not an excrutiating pain but, at any time of day, whether sitting, standing, laying down, or walking, I'm experiencing low grade pain (3-4 out of 10) somewhere in my body. After a while it wears you down.

So, after all of this, I'm not sure where it leaves me. Except, it seems, with a broken "J" key on my keyboard. It literally just flipped off, up into the air, and landed on my lap. Not that I use the J key much but every time I tap a key near it, which is I, H, K, M, and N, it flies away again. So, off to order a new keyboard from the IT department...

Quick Update

1. HIP

My swelling continued to go down, my PT said today. I think it's the new anti-inflam because we're not doing anything else significantly different, or at least anything that would affect my inflammation that quickly.

She also tested my flexibility because I was complaining that my leg felt tight, particularly in the quad. Yeah, well... NOT. I'm still hyperflexible. The pain I'm feeling IS nerve pain. It's sinking in slowly. VERY slowly. Each piece of information sits, absorbs, and is added to a previous piece of information.

It's hardly a wonder I'm not religious - if I need 3 weeks of continuous examples, education, and proof that my pain is not muscle/tightness related, think how much proof you'd have to show me to convince me that God actually exists! (This is not a comment on anyone who IS religious, by the way. It's just the way I am. I don't take things at face value. Sorry!)

Talking of which... my PT is a believer and has taken my studious silence during a recent chat with her intern about where she worships, as agreement with the same. Now my PT includes instruction on how to pray for better health and to put my fate in God's hands.

Sorry folks... I don't see God poking my nerve endings. I'm going to stick with trying to fix this one myself.

And lest you think that I am a horrible heathen (which you may very well do anyway), I am at least not planning on telling her that I am a non-believer. She is a nice person who is just trying to help me and, quite honestly, I don't want to have "that" conversation with her (and she is the type that would have "that" conversation.) I respect her right to worship whomever she wants and neither want to be converted nor engaged in a religious debate. So, I'm staying "mum", as wel say in Blighty.

Last note on this: pain is still pretty constant. Not much change there, although I take my friend, e's point, that my overall trend may be slowly downwards by small degrees; it may take a while to register that there's a difference.

2. WEIGHT

Today 147.8lbs and 36.3% fat. So, my tally is 13.2lbs lost and 2.8lbs to go to my target. 6.3% of my bodyfat still to lose. Blech!

On the plus side, with all this physical therapy focusing on strengthening my trunk, I'm going to end up with six-pack abs!

Inch by inch

Today my physical therapist told me that the swelling in my sacrum/low back area, had subsided a tad. It was a small change but the only positive one in the two weeks I've been with her, so we had a mini celebration. (Basically, a quiet and brief "woot")

Who knows what made the difference between Monday and Wednesday? Who knows if it was anything I changed that recently or just accumulative effects of everything I've been doing over the last two weeks.

All I can tell you is what changed:

• On Monday, at my doctor's appointment, he did some osteopathic manipulation on me, cracking my lumbar and hip areas. Not as much as the previous time and I didn't feel any immediate relief, but who knows?
• Doc also gave me a different anti-inflammatory. I was taking plain-ole Ibuprofen in prescription strength (600mg) before and I have been taking that, in one dose or another, for many years for headaches, aches, and pains. Instead I'm now taking an NSAID that is typically prescribed for arthritis patients, Meloxicam.
• I started sitting less at my chair in my office and just less overall. What I discovered was that standing wasn't a whole lot better, either. My back got really tired really fast and I felt as though I was going out of alignment big-time; I would end up standing with all my weight on my good leg and then that hip would start to hurt. Walking around and sitting or laying down periodically seemed to help overall. Basically, not doing anything for too long seems to be the key.
• I've also been cutting back on caffeine and sugar. I've gone down to only one sugar in my coffee and am trying to only have one cup of coffee in the morning. When I was pregnant I only drank one cup in the morning and, in the first 6-7 months of my pregnancy, my hip symptoms all-but went away. I have no idea if this has anything to do with anything, although I do know that sugar and caffeine can be inflammatory.

Any one of these things could be the difference... or not. It's so hard to tell, especially when I am personally not feeling any improvement from the pain and tightness side. In fact, I would say that, without the ability to stretch things out or get massage, I have felt tighter and more pain overall. Not that my pain is a 7 out of 10 or anything but the things I could previously alleviate with self treatment, I can no longer affect, so they persist.

I have been keeping a pain journal but it has only served to confuse me more about what may be making a difference and what may not because the same thing on two different days can produce different results. Plus, my pain is often diffuse, varies throughout the day, and can present differently - as burning, as tweaking, as stabbing/acute, as sticking/popping/clicking, or as aching - in different areas, at different times. There are some constants, of course, but I can't say I've felt any positive improvements in any of them; as I said, I'm actually feeling a bit worse.

I'll spare you the details but my PT has an educated explanation for everything that is happening to me (including the wild fluctuations in case/effect and pain) and so I still have confidence that I am getting the best possible care. So, the journey continues. I'm doing as I'm told: doing the exercises, doing the icing, doing the resting, doing the journaling, doing the change in body mechanics, doing the NSAIDs... I just have to keep in mind that I'm trying to undo possibly 4.5 years of misdiagnosis, wrong treatments, and bad behaviors.

As I said to a friend recently however, hope without proof or progress is hard. At least this little budge in my inflammation is a positive sign we may be on the right track.