Damage Assessment

I knew my back had been getting worse.  You'd have to be a moron to not notice something like that, right?  But the morning I woke up with sufficient pain to make me sit on the side of the bed and shake and to pretty much lack the ability to walk, then... apparently, only then, was I willing to acknowledge that my back really was getting worse.  Geez!  what an idiot!  Luckily, my neighbor also has trouble with his back.  Finally, I broke down and asked him for some help, and two days ago I gimped over there.  With some difficulty, he got me strapped onto his inversion table and hung me upside down a couple of times.  This caused some minor popping.  Then onto this odd shaped roly-poly kind of thing.  It's like a ball that got squeezed in the middle so it is narrow in the center.  Then  I sat on the floor carefully and  rolled backwards onto the thingy.  Rolling back and forth so it worked up and down my spine.  He finished by twisting me a little to see if I was flexing.  After all that I could stand straighter.  I could turn.

I continued to pop a bit through the day.  Pain was still bad next morning but nothing like it had been.  I could function again!  We spent the afternoon puttering around outside.  Mac and I measured and set stakes for where we would like the garage.  Then we had a discussion about dimensions and purposes.  He walked up and down simulating pulling into the measured opening.  We made it wider.  Then we measured the outdoor kitchen.  Made more plans.  Figured out where to put gravel and outlined where there should be grass.  Decided where we would plant a tree.  All the time I was bemoaning that I had lost a week's worth of work due to a back that refused to operate as engineered.

The floor project that I was scheduled for last week will just have to get scrapped for awhile.  We have to move on to leveling the area for the garage and I need to get a new chicken coop built before the new chicks come.  Today I need to finish raking some rock out of the area that is to become grass, but was parking.  The garden is in extreme need of weeding.  The horse fence that should have been finished a week ago isn't.  The birds have gotten the strawberries.  And the house is in a serious mess.

I am torn between feeling miserable about this state of affairs and feeling flippin' awesome that I can once again stand up.... bend over... why I can even cough and sneeze with out having shooting pains.  That's a wonderful thing.  I guess I will just have to buck up and then catch up.  This is going to be a year where we do great things...... no matter what!

Louie