Tag: pain

Over the weekend, Ariesna and I went to the CPL to check out their latest book sale. She got a bit ahead of me looking around as I was carrying out picks. I was about to move to the next room to catch up to her when it happened. Suddenly I felt a sharp, red-hot pain stabbing into my back. I managed to get over to Ariesna and set the books down, but it was something of a close call. We left the library shortly after that to go home and set me up with a heating pad. A bit of heat, some back pain meds and my back was feeling better. I took the day easy sitting down, reading a book.

I was still mighty tired the next day. Every time I had turned over in my sleep; I was half awakened by pain in my back. But awake eventually I was and into the shower I went. I’d just finished my shower and was drying off when another spasm ripped through my back. This one was much worse and nearly sent me to my knees. Ariesna came back and helped me. Then she called the doctor’s office and made an appointment to get me checked out. I spent the rest of the day lying down on a heating pad.

Monday, the doctor checked me out. He prescribed some pain killers and a muscle relaxant. He also set up an appointment for me to visit a physical therapist. That appointment was earlier today. The therapist was a really nice lady. She had me describe my problem. She then had me go through a series of stretches and movements to help her figure out exactly what is wrong. She told me she believes one of the discs in my spine (in the border area between the lumbar and thoracic) has a small tear.

She immediately moved to reassure me this is not something that will require surgery. I don’t think I was looking at her nervously, so I’m not entirely sure why she leaped to get that bit of information out. Though if I were to guess, I would say most of her patients are considerably older than I am and they do not like even the hint of possible surgery.

Anyway, she instructed me in doing a couple of light exercises designed to ease the tension in my back and which should improved the blood flow along the damaged area. She said these exercises should be enough for my back to heal itself correctly. Provided I keep in mind for my back to heal properly, I have to be extra cautious about it for a couple of months. She recommended I think about the damage like it was a broken bone. Even if I am feeling 100% in a few days or a week, I’m still to take it easy on my back.

Whee, such fun. Ah well, at least I haven’t promised to help anybody moving anytime soon. :p

A friend of mine recently wrote talking about how she was feeling stressed out due to her job. She did so in by writing it as a hypothetical letter to “Divine Power That Is”. While I’m not a Divine Power; I’d still wanted to try writing something up to help her feel a bit better. Hopefully this works and to the friend in question here; if this posting doesn’t help…. Well, you’d best tell my wife so she can extract your revenge for you (or at least help you plan it). 🙂

For the rest of my readers who don’t know what I’m babbling about, don’t worry about it. You can just skip the rest of this entry.
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So last night, the wife was asleep. The cat was on the couch. I was sitting at the computer going through my email, reading a few news websites. Since the wife had left the bedroom door open, I closed the door into the computer room to keep the lights from bothering her.

Then about 10:00, 10:30 at night when I noticed a pounding sound. I was a bit puzzled because it sounded like somebody was at our door. I peeked out the window, but didn’t see any of our friends cars. So I headed up to the door and I could hear voices like the people were talking to one of the neighbors. I looked through the peephole, but couldn’t make out what was going on. Then they knocked again. I opened the door and found two cops on my doorstep.

They said one of the downstairs tenants had called in a complaint that we were making too much noise. They said they’d been told the noise sounded like somebody was stomping or bowling down the hallway. I told them I didn’t know what the noise was because we weren’t doing anything. I also mentioned that sound bounces around in the building quite a bit1.

They replied they’d been out there knocking for a while and hadn’t heard anything, but when they get a compaint they are required to check it out.

1 I recounted the story of the time when we thought the people above us were playing their music too loud, but it turned out the music was actually coming from one of the downstairs apartments.

Apologies to all my faithful readers, I’ve been busy working on some new features for the ICON 30 website (with some massive help from Aizuchi. For extra pain, we’re into our next beta cycle at work; so I’m considerably busier there. And if that wasn’t enough, I’ve had a bit of a cold that just isn’t going away. Ye olde Advil Cold & Sinus beats it down for a while, but it seems to keep coming back. If it doesn’t go away by this time next week, I’ll probably be making an appointment with the doctor to get checked out. *sigh*

I did get one break since my last real post and that was last weekend’s AnimeIowa. I was rather disappointed with this year’s con. The programming track was only sparsely filled and I didn’t see anything in it that interested me1. So I mostly hung out with people I knew at the con and tried to help out the con photographer2. Mostly, I just helped tear-down/setup his gear in different rooms. *shrug* It was no big deal and I got to see pretty much all of the costumes. As usual, some were fabulous and some were…. not. Of course some of the best were in the Masquerade, and the Masquerade was the main reason we went this year. A friend of ours was in charge of it and overall it appeared to go fairly well. However there were a few problems; most of which I did not hear about until after the con was over. The main thing that I noticed was the costumers wouldn’t shut up. It may seem a bit harsh, but they all know they’re supposed to keep quiet while in the green room and we had to constantly go around asking them to be quiet throughout the whole Masquerade. *sigh* If you know the rules in advance, have them re-explained to you when you show up shortly before the Masquerade then why do you have to continually break them? *grrr*

As for the rest of the con, the dealer’s room was smaller this year and unless you wanted Naruto or Full Metal Alchemist merchandise; you were pretty much out of luck. Since they didn’t have as many dealers; the con-com put the Artists’ Alley inside the dealer’s room. This was a bright idea and I ended up buying some magnets from the guy who does the FAUB webcomic. I was not familiar with the webcomic prior to this year’s AnimeIowa but I really liked the artwork in the magnets and have since read through their entire archive of webcomics and added it to my Portal page.

I didn’t have much desire to go into any of the video rooms, but I did find one playing Bubblegum Crisis which was kind of nice. Though I didn’t get to stay around long as that was just before I had to help Wookie move his gear from the hall cosplay judging room to the green room for the Masquerade.

All in all, it was a disappointing weekend. *shrug* Oh well, can’t win ’em all.

In more current news, I’ve finally gotten caught up in listing to all the podcasts I’ve downloaded. It’s nice to listen to them and actually hear other people’s thoughts on current events while the events are still current. Along those lines, the jazz mashup from the episode# 240 of the Daily Source Code was extremely cool. Anyway, that’s all I’ve got time to write for now.

1 I should say nothing on Saturday or Sunday as I wasn’t there Friday.
2 Wookie comes to the con and takes pictures of all the Hall Cosplay entries & after the con puts them on a site where people can order prints if they want them. Also, Wookie’s a fun guy to hang around the con with.

After we finally left town for our honey-night1, Ariesna nodded off and went to sleep for most of the drive. Once we got to Davenport, I got a bit too caught up in looking for street names and went past the place we were staying… a couple of times. *sigh* I’m convinced I’ve got less direction sense than a rock. I can learn an area so I know where I’m going but it takes me a fairly long time and even after years of living in this area; I tend to turn down a street only to be surprised when it joins up with a different street I’m already familiar with. All this is building up to say that I ended up having to tell Ariesna where we were staying before we found the place2. I did so want it to be a complete surprise. *sigh*

Any hoo, the place we stayed at is called Fulton’s Landing. It’s a late 19th century house that has been beautifully maintained and is decorated with many a wonderful antique. When we finally arrived, Ariesna & I walked inside but found ourselves faced with a small problem. There was no sign of the proprietor! After a bit of shouting hello and ringing the doorbell, I went back outside and started walking around the grounds to see if I could find somebody. Later Ariesna confided in me that just after I’d gone searching that she found a small note saying that our hostess could be found painting the front porch.

After locating Pat, our gracious and charming host, we headed back to where Ariesna was waiting and then up to our room. Ariesna was thrilled and while I did find it to be a lovely room; it was a bit pink for me. We freshened ourselves up a bit and then went to a nearby Japanese restaurant that we are familiar with from previous visits to the area. Their yummy rolls weren’t as good as the ones we’d had back in Kansas City once upon a time, but the Hawaiian rolls were fantastic3! Then she had the Shrimp Tempura and I had the Chicken Katsu. Both dishes were delicious and much larger than I remembered from previous visits. After eaching our fill, we headed back to Fulton’s Landing.

Just a brief side note for the single folks who read this blog: when you get married some day; make sure to eat a good breakfast and/or hide some sort of energy bar in your pocket/purse for later. That way you don’t starve as your wedding guests are likely to keep you so busy that the serving staff will remove your food before you get a chance to eat any of it!

We did get back to Fulton’s Landing without any troubles and had a very pleasant evening relaxing… and doing those things that newlyweds do. The next morning, we had a marvelous breakfast with the other guests: a couple from Nebraska with their daughter from Brazil and a writer from England. Apparently, he writes a column called “The Best…” for The European; this has him gaunting around the world finding the best places to stay, best foods to eat and writing all about it for his clientelle. After listening to him talk for a few minutes, I’m became convinced that I’m in the wrong profession. 🙂 After breakfast, we checked out but Pat allowed us to leave our car parked there so we could go for a walk around the area. There are many gorgeous houses over there, a few of them for sale –and quite undoubtably out of my price range–. It ended up being a longer walk than we had really thought we were in for, with a good chunk leading us up-hill but it also very enjoyable. Particularly once we left the housing area and got back down by the river with the cool breeze coming in off the water. Hmm, that was soo nice.

Then it was time to retrieve the car and head for home, which we spent just quietly enjoying the day & each other’s company. Later in the evening, Ariesna’s parents came up and we unwrapped all the wedding loot. It was a good haul. Heck, there were even gifts in there that were aimed more towards me than they were towards the bride. Don’t misunderstand me, there were plenty of gifts that were definitely picked with the bride in mind! And of course, there was also a nice selection of checks and cold, hard cash as well. All in all, I think Ariesna & I should get married more often if it’s going to bring in this kind of loot.

1 Due to time & financial constraints, we didn’t get to do a full honeymoon right now but we hope to do one later. Since it was just a night away from home, I’m calling it our honey-night. 🙂
2 For the record, she’d already noticed the sign for the place a couple of times before I broke down and told her.
3 For those unfamiliar with Japanese cuisine, these rolls are actually types of sushi.