March Madness

I'm so tired.

The changes have been completely new, yet familiar.

The pain has been substantial.  Big surprise, I know. 

At one point, a segment of something (muscle, tendon, whatever) maneuvered through the side portions of my hip and gut, slowly enough to make my eyes water.  Well, I don't know how long it took, exactly.  I went into reaction mode (no real thinking, just mindful of sensory input).  When it was over, my eyes and face were soaked with tears.

I could say the same of several movies I've watched of late, though.  I cry over the most trivial of crap, most usually others' good fortune.  It's blatant - I'm desparate for something good to happen to me.  Doesn't take much Psych to see that.

*     *     *     *     *

The physical target is so close, yet still undefinable.

The change in my hips is the most noticeable, subjectively, at least.  I'm sitting differently, and it changes how everything above my hips rests upon what is beneath it.

Yet, at the top, this change has not quite reached  a tipping point over my shoulders.  But it's close.  It's a kink at the end of a hose you can't just walk to and straighten, no.  I'm constantly whipping the hose, small and firmly directed bursts, big sweeping throws, you name it.  All it does is change where the kink sits on the lawn, no water coming out of the sprinkler, yet each time I try, I'm certain it will be come undone.

Wrong.  wrong.  wrong.  Until it actually does unkink.  [Worth noting, in the multitude of times I have lived that hose kink flipping literally, the unkinking never fails to release water under much higher pressure than anticipated, soaking me, and making moot the reason for not walking out to the kink in the first place.]

So close, it's maddening, ten thousand times a day.

Some NCAA distractions couldn't be more welcome.

So, let the madness begin!  Er, change, get redirected.  That didn't write well.

*     *     *     *     *

On a different note, my 42nd birthday is quickly approaching.  Late joke that I am, it'll be on April 2nd, 4/2.

Here is to hoping some I Ching type of numerological mumbo jumbo makes my 42nd on 4/2 a good day.

Sure, it isn't turning 11 on 11/11/11 or anything so clearly special (rare), but it's something when you don't have much to grasp on to.

Ouch.

Spa working again, and the adjustments are full blown madness.

It's two weeks worth of change (enough to sustain insanity in it's own time period) stuffed into a day and a half.

The sole reason for this entry - something, maybe muscle, tendon, whatever, moved over several of my lower right rib cage.

It hurt.

It felt like a hard rubber cord, unbelievably tight, slid (was ripped downward) from a point several ribs above the bottom of the cage to a point free of the rib cage, now in the soft tissue.  Over each rib was a very sharp pain, one after the other, yet it happened in a split second.

All I was doing was following the muscles, from base in legs, to core, to back, to attempt to raise my arms with my shoulders (instead of raising my arms where the point of focus is in my hands).

I'm a little shaken by the experience, so I wanted documentation, of sorts, by this.

It never gets old.  Rather, I never am prepared for the next new sensation.

I've presumed great pain would be involved at some point, if in fact an injury was the primary source of all this shit in the first place.

I really want this to end.

I'm losing it.

Those moments when I can catch my breath, those few moments when I can actually think, instead of my thoughts being driven by stimuli, those moments are my most desperate.

This is a hell. 

I Hate Winter

Still alive.  Still making progress.  Still suffering.

The spa broke over a week ago.  That was bad.

This week has been more difficult than I feared, far more difficult.


*     *     *     *     *

And yet, the progress is significant.

I can almost articulate it, but not quite.  I can contort in such a way as to momentarily use a muscle in my right shoulder.  It requires intense focus on multiple body parts.  Such fun.

I'm hopeful that I will be able to perform the traditional shoulder rehab exercises in the not-too-distant future.  Well, . . . , I'm hopeful I can do them with minimal contorting necessary to use (and thereby strengthen) the correct muscles.

*     *     *     *     *

Otherwise, it is pain and wasting time playing Skyrim, interspersed with moments of parenting and the occasional trip outside the house.

I need an end to this cold weather.

X-Mess

[It's a tricky time to update.  Family invade shortly, and I'm still producing lung butter at a rate which probably disqualifies me for small business status.]

*     *     *     *     *

Winter arrived.  The Mayan calendar ended.  I remain, changing.

*     *     *     *     *

There was some real progress the last two days, however, and for a moment, last night, subluxing limbs  while inhaling steam in the spa (in a nice rain, too), I do believe I saw the light at the end of the tunnel.

The specifics are for my journal, not here.  They just wouldn't make sense without pages of prose I lack the ability to write at the moment. 

For example, I found a release in my jaw that may well lead to being able to sleep on my back.  Make sense?  A quick attempt, a starter, really - the jaw release freed a connection which had my skull tilted back in relation to the top of my spine.  My back of my head was able to lift, my neck elongating, the spine seeming to move slightly back and straightening (instead of arcing like a "c," it became an "l").

The other BIG change was a feeling in my right shoulder that I cannot explain at all.  For a brief moment, it was like a ball was atop my arm within the shoulder joint.  I had a "Holy Shit!  Is THAT what it's supposed to feel like?" moment, and spent the next 20 minutes or so trying to recapture the feeling, to no avail.

Anyways, I am exhausted.  My body is sore.  My lungs are shot.  My sinuses are dried and bleeding.  I've had no better than 4 hours of sleep any night the past week and a half.  There really is nothing quite like the experience of a physical metamorphosis while ill in Winter.

Now the relatives are coming to dote on my daughter.

*     *     *     *     *

I'll close with a nice little apocalyptic concept. 

In the past, when I'd have an adjustment that would alter my chest or neck such that my posture opened up previously closed portions of lung or sinus, I'd get sick, similar to now.

Suppose, some 30+ year old virus I had as a kid was trapped in some corner of lung or sinus cavity.  There, it mutated, only to be freed when an insane genius (or the genuinely insane, your choice) managed to figure out how to unwind his body.  I could be ground zero for the super flu, Captain Tripps, himself.

Tangential, at best, though circling back, a picture of endurance?  Apres Moi, Le Deluge.  It's a decent look at moments of my time.

Two Words I Didn't Need To Hear

Walking Pneumonia.

I got it, already.  Winter is just starting and my lungs are now as dysfunctional as my body.

I am SO screwed.

*     *     *     *     *

I'm trying to look on the bright side.  There isn't a bright side.  Maybe if there was a market for lung butter, then, there would be a bright side.

Okay.  I just chuckled.  Well, I did on the inside, before a coughing fit took over.

I could sell The Wisdom Cow brand Lung Butter.  That's almost funny.

A non-sick me would probably download a picture of the Land O Lakes butter package, doctor it so the Atom Heart Mother cow sits in the spot of the kneeling Indian, and then upload the clever picture of the product of my expectorant.

Of course, a non-sick me would mean no product.

So I'm just going to click Publish and go stare at the TV.

When Will Enough Be Enough

[This is depression writing. This is what happens when I am mentally afraid but aware enough to fight of despair. This is exhaustion. This is not good, not good at all.]



I am losing it.

Slowly and steadily, every day we creep further into Winter.

Okay, technically, it isn't even Winter yet, which only makes things worse as I fret over the coming months of cold.

Last Winter was agony.  I had forgotten, thankfully, how bad it was, similar to how I cannot recall the specifics of each weeks' pains as things continue to evolve into new ways to hurt.  I did remember it sucked, but I lost all specificity, and I certainly did not want to go through my notes to relive it mentally, to see what pains may be on the horizon once again.

I do remember it seemed to last forever, and I remembered how glad I was when it finally warmed up.

I also remember how much I tried to force my rehab exercises, how I would overdo it.  Those first months of warmth, I was so scared that I would not be better, better enough, to not be miserable through another Winter. 

And now, I remember how I genuinely feared the prospect of making it through another Winter.

The fear is back.
So is the cold.  And
My mind entertains death once again.

*     *     *     *     *

I cannot help but fantasize.  I return to the thoughts of the Mayan Calendar, or the Hopi's New Age, that somehow I am going to become something, untangled, come December 21st. 

I couldn't help but be revisited by the Led Zeppelin songs which comforted me through pain so long ago, as the band has plugged their new concert album recently on NBC's Revolution, an interview on Letterman, as well as their Kennedy Center honors.  Will I get the bustle out of my hedgerow?  Am I on the path that no one goes?

Mental masturbation, all.

I want this to be done.  I'm so tired.

*     *     *     *     *

Of course, I have thought this before.  I endured pain before.  I got through Winters before, and I will again.

Only, this time I have an added fear, a completely irrational one.  That it is irrational only makes me fear it all the more.

After the 21st, when [crosses fingers and says, "if"] I am not a new man, when there is just another in this seemingly endless set of changes and pains, what do I fantasize about then?

Logic only gets you through so much.  Chronic pain deteriorates the mind.  Believe me.  I've been there.  What happens when one of my favorite daydreams is taken away?  What happens the next time I feel desperate?

Sure, part of me is excited by the extent of my recent changes, which have been objectively significant, with my lower back and hips changing dramatically while the shoulders continue to shift, my neck and head changing their normal positions (with both ears suffering great pain in the process).  It could well be a mere two weeks until I get the final knot untied.

How much of a mindfuck would that be, right?  I'd want to believe I was part of some great Synchronicity of change, but I guarantee my logical side would take over (especially if the pain were finally gone), and I'd have somehow created a decade long self-fulfilling prophecy or sorts.

But when ["If, dammit, IF!"] it doesn't happen?  What then?

*     *     *     *     *

This is depression writing. This is what happens when I am mentally afraid but aware enough to fight of despair. This is exhaustion. This is not good, not good at all.

Excriment and the Air Conditioning

[Ouch.]

The amount of shifting going on in my body is both alarming and exhilarating.

Both arms are twisting while muscle creeps up their respective shoulders, my hips transforming, with even my wrists (especially the right thumb) and ankles shifting into new positions. 

When my right shoulder is positioned just so (not easy to find, requiring both proper hip location, abdomen clenching, and neck flexing), I get the equivalent of releases in my face.  Upon one such release, the crease at the outside corner of my right eye changed, now a good 20 degrees below the previous angle (which had been just below horizontal).

There is no doubt in my mind that the sledding injury of my youth is greatly to blame.

Vision issues have subsequently occurred following the facial/jaw releases.  My glasses literally do not fit on my face properly anymore (as if they had been messed with or bent) and I wonder if I need to go glasses-less for a period of time and then have my prescription checked again.  I have been wondering if years on end with extra tension on my eyes from the muscles surrounding them, stretched and out of place, have anything to do with my nearsightedness.

For now, I hope the changes slow down, as I am having great trouble resting.  I can't sleep.  Muscle memory is uncomfortably out of balance and there are no positions in bed which give the slightest ease, with drug induced sleep leading to exacerbated pains in the morning which take hours to recover from.

*     *     *     *     *

I try to daydream that December 21st will find me a new man, the way my adjustments have been occurring with a frequency and to an extent exponentially greater than ever before.

Wouldn't that be a trip?  Me, standing long and echoing the forest with laughter, when the Mayan Calender ushers in a new age?