weather and traffic

January 16, 2002

Today's Reading
The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cranes by Peter Matthiessen, Sleeping with Cats by Marge Piercy

This Year's Reading
2002 Book List

Monday was what I can only describe as a "not so good very bad day", resulting in my spending this morning at the chiropractor instead of the 10,000 other places I ought to be at once.

So, in a nutshell, first I got stuck in traffic on 495 and was late for work. Then I fell on the ice in the parking lot. I landed on my left knee and my right arm, elbow, shoulder (don't try to visualize this unless you have a graduate degree in topology). My precious Perfecto's coffee landed in the snow about 6 feet away, all of it, every last drop. Refusal to drink the pencil-shaving flavored coffee in the office gave me a headache. I iced the knee and elbow, which hurt like hell but were only bruised. Only then did I notice I couldn't lift my right arm above shoulder level without wincing. As the day wore on, I began to realize there was something amiss with my shoulder or my back or something.

Various coworkers advised me to seek treatment, one gave me the phone number of her chiropractor who is only a mile and a half down the street from Starship Startup. She insisted that he would see me today. So I called. His office said, oh no, we can't seen any new patients until Thursday. That's fine, I have my own chiropractor anyway. He's in Woburn so it's a long way and sunshiny coworker thinks I should go to somebody near work so I put off calling him. And I must be getting better because I put my jacket on to leave and did not scream.

At Cafe di Sienna that night, all members of the MRFRS newsletter committee tell me it must be my rotator cuff and I am going to be in therapy for the rest of my natural life. I'll never pitch again. Oh wait, I never could pitch in the first place. Two chai lattés later, I've agreed to write a book review of Sleeping with Cats in addition to my regular column. Must be the vanilla. Or maybe the cardamom. Everybody warns me to be careful on the ice, of which there is plenty in Newburyport.

Tuesday I wake up and have trouble dressing myself. Maybe I should reconsider calling my chiropractor. So I do so at noon time, forgetting he finishes seeing people at noon on Tuesdays (he starts at ungodly early hours). He can fit me in next morning. That would be today.

The office is crowded and I have to wait a long time. He's got a patient in every room. Finally it's my turn. He x-rays me, pokes, prods, and rotates my arm and concludes I have a small tear in the lattissimus dorsi muscle on that side. I get hooked up to electrodes to stimulate the area. That lasts 20 minutes and feels supremely weird - like my muscles are moving of their own accord. Then a therapist does an ultrasound treatment. The chiropractor decides it's still too tender for him to adjust that area so he tells me to come back on Friday for more electricity, more ultrasound, plus chiropractic adjustment, and maybe muscular therapy. Meanwhile, I am to ice it three times a day.

By tonight, it's down to a dull ache as if I've overdone a workout or something. I feel way better. But I gotta watch out for ice and traffic and lack of coffee...