My Bones Hurt.

SO, I haven't written in a few days. Since the last time I wrote, I've learned the basics of how to samba, attended service at an 'evangelical megachurch', celebrated mom's day and b-day, had a fully embarrassing couple of nights, miserably lost a pub quiz with the help of fellow PhD & MD candidates (grad students have better things to think about I guess), met the 15 yr old girl I'll be mentoring for the next 2 years (over an $8 bowl of ice cream from maggie moo's. expensive!!), chatted with a member of the DC council about how Brown is just as cool of a school as MIT, and decided I want to spend some time in Africa (or France? or Cali... not a decisive decision, perhaps) after graduation.

I missed the opportunity to talk about all of those in depth - but there is one specific thing that's been constant over the last 12 days. The pain in my back! In a post to come I'll explain more, but on a particularly boring day at work a co-worker and I decided we'd like to participate in the 2008 DC dragonboat festival. We convinced 24 other unsuspecting novices to sign waivers and agree to jump into a 3 ton boat with us to paddle our way through a series of 500 and 250m races two weeks from now. We've had three practices since April 27th. I've become increasingly immobile since April 27th. I think the one-sided paddling has aggravated an old injury that previously went untreated (dislocated shoulder - the result of falling down a flight of wooden stairs while attempting to sing the Ukrainian national anthem during the 2004 Summer Olympics shot put awards ceremony).

Well, now when I move my right arm or shoulder it hurts, and I can't comfortably look down without tilting my whole body. I also noticed that I can no longer touch my feet to the floor over my head when I'm laying on my back - but since that's not really a motion necessary for getting through the day, I'm guessing I can't justifiably complain about that...! Anyway - the worst part is getting out of bed in the morning. I have to "warm-up" and stretch to get up!

My insurance company doesn't pay for chiropractic visits, so I started trying alternative (free) solutions. 1st - I relegated myself to sleeping on the floor tucked behind my bedroom door [below] instead of on the bed on which I spent multiple paychecks to make comfortable [above]. 2nd - I implemented a daily 'feet behind the head' test to mark any improvements the change in sleeping arrangements might have made.

I have consequently found that my $100 floor cushion is more beneficial to the health of my back and is maybe (just maybe) just as comfortable as my bed as well. This is quite discouraging news. So discouraging, in fact, that I've gone back to sleeping in my bed, feigning that the cushion was not the victor. I wake up with a sore back in the morning and look over at the cushion and get mad! I can't sleep tucked away in a corner every night when I've got a big expensive bed taking up half the space in my room!

So, I'm going to ignore these results and just try to sleep this one off (the way I did that shoulder in '04). It may take awhile, but I don't think I can be in pain forever!

[if you're a chiropractor and disagree with that last statement - do you ever have sales??]