My Oh My My MRI

Okay, so I hurt my shoulder.

How? You ask.

I’m not exactly sure, to tell you the truth.

Maybe I dove into a rushing river to save a drowning baby. 

Maybe I ran into a burning building and lifted a giant armoire in order to save a drowning baby.

Maybe I slept on it wrong.

Anyway, I went to the doctor after a couple of weeks of nagging pain. He took x-rays which confirmed what we both thought:  that I have bones underneath my skin.

“We need to do an MRI,” he told me.

So we scheduled the procedure and I showed up bright and early, excited about the prospect of being shoved into a tube only a quarter-of-an-inch bigger than I am. 

Usually when I’m stripped down to my socks and underwear, it means I’m in for an afternoon of watching football, but this morning it’s MRI funtime!

I’m mentally prepared for the claustrophobia and unnerving loudness (I laid down the day before with my head two feet from a railroad track to get ready for the noise), but I wasn’t ready for the nurse to twist my arm sideways and jam it forcibly against my side.

“How does that feel?” she chirped.

“Really, really uncomfortable,” I winced.

“Okay,” she smiled. “Just hold it like that for 20 minutes and we’ll be good to go.”

She placed a rubber bulb in my left hand and told me to squeeze it in case of an emergency. Thirty seconds later, the bulb feel out of my grasp just as I was getting ready to squeeze (due to fact that I was uncomfortable, angry and bored).

Fourteen hours later (maybe more), I emerged and was told I could get dressed and leave.

It was the worst thing I’d ever experienced.

Until I got the bill five minutes later.

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Smarting But Not Smart

Weekly weigh-in: 223.9
Loss: +.4
Total loss: 67.6 lbs.
Emotion: Bent out of shape

I’ve been dreading this post all week.

I feel like I spend most of my time here up on a stage, but on Sundays I invite everybody over to the house for a more informal get-together. Only this week, the sink’s full of dirty dishes and there’s underwear strewn all over the floor.

On Tuesday, I was getting after it on the basketball court again, still not 100% recovered from my whacked back. I was on the mend and feeling pretty good, until I overdid it and learned an important lesson: I’m a dumbass. Yes, I aggravated my back injury, and I’m struggling to stay upright these days. What’s worse, nobody gets any sympathy for their third-degree burns when they rush back into the burning house to save their Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots.

So, bent and in a considerable amount of pain, I made an appointment with the acupuncture clinic that my wife Anita has been raving about lately. I wanted to see if there was anything to this Dr. Ly and his ancient Chinese secret.

Soon I’m stripped down with a dozen or so needles poking out of my back and trying to decide if this was a mistake or just a bad idea. They proceeded to strap electodes to the needles to shoot me full of electricity for a half hour, then heated the needles, rubbed my back with something called “woodcock oil” (hmmmmm, happy ending coming up?) and finished up by slapping big suction cups on my back to “draw inflammation out.” It's the surreal deal.

After two sessions, I wasn’t seeing a lot of improvement, and actually had a scary setback. I shuffled into the bathroom in the middle of the night to take a whiz. While taking care of whizness, I suddenly started having back spasms and couldn’t get in a position to make them stop. I eventually slumped against the wall and passed out, apparently. Anita rushed in and, seeing me sweating profusely and glassy-eyed, immediately started sweating profusely and went glassy-eyed herself. She got it together enough to get me a cold rag and help me ease onto my back, which had locked up tight. Pisa came in, assessed the situation, and with typical 10-year-old empathy, said “I think I’ll go to the bathroom upstairs.”

Forty-five minutes later, I had inch-wormed myself back to bed and mentally wrote this week off. I need some serious heal-thyself time, so that’s what I’m doing. For me, it’s infuriating because it’s so much harder to eat right when I’m not getting my sweat on. Not exercising keeps my stress level higher, too, as well as affecting both the quantity and quality of my sleep.

So this is my fifth straight day of slowing down and letting myself heal up. I know I have to do it and I know I have all the time in the world to get this weight loss show back on the road. I’m feeling better each day, but I’m going to take it slow and easy (even if taking it slow and easy is the last thing I want to do).

There's another dangerous "dark side" to all this on-my-butt downtime, too. Get ready for some l-o-o-n-n-g posts here this week. Hey, if I've gotta suffer, I'm going to make sure I'm not the only one...