electricity and the flu
This summary is mostly for me, but feel free to follow my recent misadventures on the health front.
Luc came home on Friday after a flu-thing hit him at work, but I didn’t think it was the flu so I tended to him as best I could and thought nothing of it. Saturday morning, I hobbled to the physical therapy place in Belltown.
The lady — wait a minute I gotta talk about her. I love her. Vimla is her name and she’s obviously East Indian. She is all business and super smart, but every now and again she realizes that some people might not read her right. I could see that some folks would take offense or feel condescended to or something, so she stops and says things like, “Oh! Don’t feel like I’m saying you’re a wreck! All of this, well not the scoliosis, but everything else we can fix. If you work on it. You have to work on these.” And she explains absolutely everything. Anyway, Vimla examined me and made me do weird movements, some of which no one does in real life, and asked me questions. She told me about the scoliosis (not fixable now) and the posture problems (fixable). Then came the injury assessment.
She explained that the muscles around the spine have a reflex where they tighten up to protect the spine — it’s why most people get outta car wrecks and can still walk. (Interesting side note: all that bypasses your brain: your spine and muscles communicate directly with each other.) Well, my body decided the spine was in danger while vomiting, got all the muscles to tighten up A LOT… and they never let go. The worst part for me, obviously, was the pinched nerve. I told her I had been taking all kindsa pills this week, but none seemed to work any more (not even the muscle relaxers). She had a different solution.
She had me lie down on a table with a ‘moist heat’ pad for a while. Her assistant wheeled in what I now know is an electro-shock machine. Just like a muscle relaxer, she told me, only it goes directly in the muscle instead of being digested and giving all the side effects. I didn’t even blink — when you’ve been in constant pain, anything that offers relief sounds good. You wanna pump electricity through my back? And that will make those muscles ‘let go’? Go for it. And she did. More than once. In between those sessions, she did a round of sonogram stuff. Apparently, the electrical currents and the sound waves would help loosen everything up, increase circulation, push toxins out, etc. We ended with some stretches (that I now do all the time). For the first time in nearly two weeks, I was not in pain. Granted, that didn’t last long (the walk home brought out the few still-taut knots), but I was joyous anyway.
Then, in the middle of Saturday night it hit me. The flu that Luc had. Sick, again? Really? Ugh. After having almost no back pain from physical therapy, I managed to tweak it again while retching for hours and hours (not as bad this time — no E.R.).
I’m finally starting to feel a bit better after spending the better part of two days asleep. Bananas and rice have passed the test of staying in my body, the stretches and heat are keeping the pain dealable. Now, if someone could just explain why my body is giving out on me, that would be awesome. Thanks.
