Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Dre-e-e-e-eam

Dream, dream dream... man, I love that song. Definitely the best use of "gee whiz" in modern song. Or... I guess any song. My crazy involved dreams (which I've credited to my cleared spinal column, though perhaps I'm just having some sort of renaissance of the subconscious) continue unabated - biological/zombie terror outbreak the other night and an extremely long and detailed Harry Potter dream over the weekend, which I'll blame on Van Deren for showing me all the HP movies in the span of a week and a half. I've also had Dream Police stuck in my head for days, which I suppose I can only blame on Cheap Trick.

And I seem to have popped my left shoulderblade back mostly into place, which is great and strange. And today is the last day of school before break, though of course I've gotten some good stress to carry me through to the new year (including a School Board presentation the day we get back, half-hearted-huzzah), but, you know, this morning I saw the most amazing sundog (parhelion!) on my way to school and TOMORROW IS MY BIRTHDAY!!! OH HAPPY DAY! :D

Friday, December 19, 2008

2/3 of the way to TOTAL CHRISTMAS CHEER!



Last night I finally saw the Christmas cement truck, and today heard Fairytale of New York! Now I just have to watch Beavis and Butthead Do Christmas with the boys, and my cheer will be complete!

My pelvic sway

Sounds pretty sexy, eh?! But, um... it's not, really. Curses!

I had my reevaluation with the Rushfords Monday, and have moved consistently out of the red zone, exceeding our target goals in 2 out of 3 categories. Fantastico! I'm steadily working through stored stress and doing a good job of getting rid of new stress as it comes up, which is an especially amazing feat this time of year. The more I work out some areas, the more aware I am of the places that are still stuck, among them my left shoulder blade, which I feel like I finally breathed into for the first time yesterday at my adjustment. Turns out my pelvic sway is still much the same as when I came in, which surely has some to do with the fact that, you know, my pelvis is... what's the least repellant word here? Malformed? haha Hot!

Though I don't hold out much hope that NSA will somehow magically make all my hip pains go away, it's certainly had an amazing impact, yesterday being a fine example - I came limping in all grumbly mumbly and Dr. Hoo did some leg maneuvering along with the usual spine and shoulder stuff. Definitely the first time a medical professional has ever rubbed my butt and said "Let's bring some breath here, please." But, hey, it works! So I brought my breath there (which I didn't even really know I could do) and it was great. On my last deep breath of the adjustment my eyes actually rolled back in my head, and immediately Dr. Hoo said "Did you feel that breath?!" And I did, all the way up into new and exciting realms of spinality. And it was pretty sweet. :)

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Slip slidin' away

When I left Hinesburg last night my car thermometer read 42 and by the time I hit Montpelier it was 31 and the sidewalks were an uninterrupted sheet of glare ice. I slid cautiously the entire .2 miles home from my parking spot, feeling kind of silly until I compared it to how silly I'd feel if I fell and had to go back to crutches - it's all relative!

Two weeks from today I turn 29 (I may have mentioned this approximately 3 zillion times already) and 6 months from today I go under the knife - duhn duhn DAAAHHH! Thankfully the extreme delay before surgery hasn't resulted in my obsessing over it nonstop, and has instead helped me get everything in order in my usual compulsive manner. Also I've had plenty of time to get jacked in anticipation of all my crutch time. *flexes* :)

And I'm doing pretty well! I get a little anxious reading on hipwomen the tales of folks just going through a PAO, but have gotten pretty good at recognizing that there's no way I can anticipate how my particular experience will go, and there's no use fretting over it. It seems like attitude makes an enormous difference in healing, and I'm determined to get better, so I've got that going for me! And I feel like I have an amazing support system, both personally and medically - I can't thank what I think of as "my team" enough for helping me get through the past 8 months. You make my life better!

Monday, December 8, 2008

Thanks BJ :)

BJ has consistently been the funniest contributor to my library of hip-related humor. Sent me this the other day:



heh heh heh

I nearly - NEARLY! - went back on the cane yesterday, after spending too much time on my feet at the store Saturday (and sleeping 12 hours that night) but managed to muddle through. This near-zero weather isn't doing me any favors, though I believe Santy Claus will be bringing me a new cozy knee-length coat for Birthmas this year!

On the insurance front, suffice to say I am very irritated right now and things are still up in the air about my MRI bill. Hmph!

Last Thursday I went to a demo/"Life Talk" at the Rushfords and now I have spine envy. Dr. Hoo let us observe an adjustment on a woman who's been coming to them for years and it was pretty mindblowing to see how quickly her spine is able to modify ITSELF in response to the smallest targeted touch (sometimes nowhere near where the problem might be manifesting). It was great to finally be able to see the process from the outside perspective and understand what an active role I (slash my bodymind) can and should play in the adjustment. I'm taking charge of my spine dammit! haha Looking forward to tomorrow's adjustment, which I think is my second to last before I get reevaluated and, much as I love it, hopefully drop down to going just once/week - I don't think the stress of driving there all the time is helping me any!

And in other news, MY BIRTHDAY IS TWO WEEKS FROM WEDNESDAY!!! WOOHOO! :D

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Man, insurance is dumb.

So even Blue Cross doesn't know why I got billed $450 from Children's Hospital - the friendly customer service lady was like "Uhhh... I'm going to pass this on to our investigators...?" But it seems like it was just an error in processing, since I had approval for out-of-network service from Dr. Kim and an emergency approval (from the side of 89) for the MRI on the day of. Apparently the charge is for the reading of the MRI, which may well have been done by someone other than Dr. Kim, which may have resulted in the error. Now I wait. And just presume it's all a mistake, because I sure don't have $450 lying around!

Otherwise, though, insurance is most assuredly NOT dumb, as without it I would have paid probably $15,000 (yes, that's the right number of zeros!) out of pocket before even getting to surgery. Or, more to the point, have incurred $15,000+ of debt!

Waking up this morning I was reminded of an unforseen consequence of my continued NSA adjustments - lots of sleep and LOTS of long, bizarre, superinvolved dreams! I don't know quite why, though the sleep isn't really a surprise. For whatever reason, that's what happens when my legs tire out - I just nod off... for about 3 hours on average! The dreaming I'm sure the Rushfords would say is a result of the pathways along my spinal cord being unblocked (and whatnot), but whatever it is it's throwing my subconscious for quite the loop!

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Level 2 ACHIEVED!

Well, Thanksgiving was awesome, Celtics were AMAZING, and having Travis and BJ (and Nick and Kara) in town Saturday was just a joy. Overall, life has been pretty good, though I was limping something fierce by the time I got to the Rushfords last night. I can always tell how well I'm feeling by how long the hallway seems. :)

Being trapped in a car for as long as I was last week, I actually found I had plenty of time to focus on my spine, and all the important nerve messages it sends me to keep my alignment true. Dr. Hoo was pleasantly surprised to see how well I was able to maintain flexibility despite the added stress, and started working with me on some Level 2 spinal business. This involved me laying on my side while she lined my ailing vertebrae up all proper-like and had me hold it for a few breaths. Immediately upon sitting back up, my left hip pain was gone. Just... gone! Astounding!

I also experienced another one of these crazy deep healing breaths that went right up into the top of my spine and shoulder blades, realigning the whole mess back to center. It's the kind of breath I expect to see in tomorrow's "Life Talk" at the Rushfords - basically a demonstration for new patients of what's going on behind your back when you're laying there (a lot more butt-touching than you might think). I'm definitely looking forward to it - much as I've felt the effects of my adjustments pretty profoundly, I still have no idea how to explain it all to people. Lucky for me I have Ali around to say things like "Oh, I looove Level 2!" which makes me feel slightly less crazy. :D