2019: The Year of the Body (Horror) (Mine)

I am fighting off the last of the dregs of this current nasty ol’ cold. Fewer people are telling me I sound terrible, the coughing is less frequent and the strength of the hacking diminishes each day.

The weekend is going to be nice and warm and I was looking forward to just taking it in and doing nothing special. You know, relaxing.

Last night while sitting at the computer (as I am now as I type this) I marveled over how the muscle I pulled (again) in my lower back was already back to not being sore. Hooray. A short time later I felt an odd sort of pain in my upper right leg. I wondered if it might be connected. Then I stopped wondering and started going through various levels of agony as pain collected in my right butt cheek the way lint collects in a pocket. Except with more agony.

The pain started shooting down my leg. Sitting started to hurt. I stood. Standing started to hurt. I walked and hobbled instead. When I coughed it hurt. It hurt no matter what. Something was very wrong. I groused vocally about it. By rights, I should have moved my Complaint Free World bracelet back and forth between my wrists half a dozen times.

I found a position in bed in which I could lay and not cause the leg to send shards of pain all over. I slept…surprisingly well.

When I woke up, I was back to hobbling, but more movement seemed to help and eventually the pain become more of a nagging nuisance and I quickly adapted to not doing the things that caused the pain. Pavlov would have been proud. And then given me a biscuit.

I went to the nearby medical clinic to see if this was a pinched nerve and the adorable young doctor–who seemed to think we had met before (we had not)–confirmed that seemed likely. He recommended I get some physio, give it about a week to feel better, and gave me no medication. He implied if it was not better I could come back in a week and he’d give me something. When I came home I took a couple Alleve. I’m not sure if they made a difference, but I’m happy to indulge the placebo effect.

And so even as I wrap up a week of nigh-endless coughing, sneezing and feeling yucko, I now have an additional pain which is a literal pain in the butt. Well, butt cheek. As it is, I can live with it, and it has confirmed that my resolution to stretch this year was the correct one. Being limber and flexible makes pulling muscles randomly less likely. And look, it’s already the fifth month of the year and the only stretching I’ve done is to grab some more Goldfish crackers.

I shall work to correct this, starting on the weekend (because I know me, and I never start anything on a Friday).

Here’s to a month–heck, even a week–of no new issues plaguing my apparently fragile, sensitive body.

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