This is what I looked like after I got back from Maui. Notice the slant? I’m standing up straight. If you mouse over the picture you’ll see what I looked like about a week later. A little better, right?
You might recall that while on Maui, a tsunami (spelled right the first time, thank you very much) came while we were on the beach, picked me up and deposited me, neck first, on the beach. After that Brad said that I always looked angry because when I turned to look at someone I turned my whole body. You should try it sometime. I think Brad was scared of me for the first few days.
Side Note: Turning was actually a little more complicated than that. The first step was to just shift my eyes in that direction to see if I could see the thing without any head movement. If that didn’t work, I could get maybe 20 degrees of turn in before it started to hurt. After that I could get another 20 degrees by rotating from my shoulders. If I needed to see a little further astern I could rotate from the hips for about 45 degrees. That gave me nearly 90 degrees. If I needed to see anything back further than that, I would have to actually move my feet (if standing) or start to hurt something (in all other positions).
Anyway, about a week ago I went to my doctor and he checked to make sure I didn’t actually hurt any part of my spine and then gave me some muscle relaxers and told me to try some hot and cold treatments. If it didn’t get better he would send me to a physical therapist.
It didn’t really get much better, and everyone told me to go to a chiropractor (Again, first time. I’m really hot in the spelling department today). So I made an appointment with the parent of two of our Lincoln Lutheran students. Beth recommended him, and his boys are smart, so I figured he must be too.
When I hear people talking about chiropractors it seems like they go every 3 days for approximately 14 years and then they are better. Ron looked me over and said he thought he could help and that it should take two visits (including this one). So that’s one point in his favor already.
He explained what he was going to do and then got to work. He said my back looked fine, but did three “things” to my neck (what are those called?). The first one was just a little simple pop. The second sounded like he took a bundle of eight to ten sticks (missed my only chance to use the word faggot there) and broke it in his hands. It was a lot of popping. Yes, it hurt. Then he did another one that wasn’t so bad.
I instantly felt a lot better.
No, I didn’t. I felt more or less the same and he gave me some more instructions and I made an appointment to come back in two days. But by the time I was walking out to the car I did notice a change. It still hurt when I turned my head, but it didn’t hurt in my neck anymore. It hurt in my shoulders. It was a much nicer kind of hurt.
Lauren didn’t know I went, and she noticed right away that I was turning from my neck instead of from my shoulders. I thought I was turning the same way that I had been, but I guess not. I do notice a difference now. If I’m not stretching my neck left or right past the comfortable point (something the chiropractor told me to do every hour) then it doesn’t hurt, and when it does hurt it is more of a muscle ache. I don’t know how to describe the difference, but this pain is less painful. It’s not that it is less severe, it’s just different.
The worst part about this whole thing is that I won’t be able to make fun of Brad and his “bad back” anymore.