Speaking of progress…

We are taking a drastic step for my back. This is truly avant-garde. Out on a limb medicine ahead. I know there are many of you out there who will be deeply, deeply alarmed by what we intend to try here; those with sensitive stomachs may wish to leave the Internet at this time.

So, thus far Himself had given me Celebrex (I am the first person he has ever known to get an upset stomach from Celebrex) which did nothing, and the Elavil worked well for my insomnia the first couple nights and then stopped working, and also the hydrocodone, while nice for a buzz and all, likewise didn’t do much for the actual discomfort. It just makes me, you know, happier to be uncomfortable. Which is better than nothing but still – not great.

Conventionally speaking, our next step would be to try another combination of medications. Up the dosage of the Elavil to try to get an end-run around the insomnia issues, and perhaps bump the pain killer up to percocet, try some other anti-inflammatory medications, actually go to the steroids or something.

Instead, we’re going to take a few weeks and try something revolutionary. You’ve probably never heard of it. It’s really off the grid. He had to explain it several times, slowly, using small words before I finally understood what he was talking about.

It’s called “diet and exercise”.

I know. Virtually unheard of, these days. But apparently there are medical mavericks out there using these two things to treat everything from raging obesity to mild depression!

Who. Knew?!

So I’m trading my physical therapist for a personal trainer, who is to kick my lazy butt into gear encourage me to get working on my overall body-tone. Which, by the way, is non-existent right now. I have all the muscle tone of a dead jellyfish. Go ahead. Feel that bicep. {squip!} Yeah, that’s right – solid flab, that’s what that is right there.

I’m supposed to get a daily exercise program. Daily. No, I don’t know how and when either, but the man did not say it was going to be easy. Neither are taking medications with labels on them warning you to not drive or operate heavy machinery while taking them – how am I supposed to get through a day on those things? “Oh, ya, officer, it totally sez I shouldn’t, like, drive and some junk? But I’ve got to go pick up MY KIDS right now, so, well, ya, ya know?”

I’m also to start working on a diet makeover, cutting out fast and processed foods and odd eating schedules, substituting actual breakfast-snack-lunch-snack-dinner, with planned portions instead of the ‘eh, I’m kinda hungry, what have I got in the fridge today’ method I currently use for everything but dinner.

Oh. And water. I’m supposed to drink actual water. I was shocked to discover that the ice cubes in my vodka and cranberry do not count toward my daily water consumption. Humph! I think he’s just making that up, but I’m too polite to actually call him on it.

We’re giving this three weeks to show some good results; I actually expect it will. There’s nothing really wrong with me; it isn’t like I had some kind of sudden trauma (like, slamming into a tree while high on codeine) or massive spine defect or have organs failing or anything. It’s just…bad habits finally catching up to me, taking advantage of small cracks to make bigger problems.

With any luck, a good dose of plain old common sense will have me back to Denizen Herding before they know what hit them.

And fitting back into my jeans without all this overhang wouldn’t suck, either.