Any Given Sunday

This has been my shortest, most painful weekend in recent memory. Last week was equally painful, but long. The muscles in my back reached a level of cramping that became unbearable by Monday. So, Tuesday evening I went for a Chinese full body massage. I don't know what it's called in Chinese, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was called something like "expensive pain."

Face-down on the massage table, I wanted to scream, but the pain was so strong that I could only gasp for air as the woman pushed, prodded and smacked my body. The height of pain came when she began to work on my back. Using my own body against me, she rolled the tensed muscles over my shoulder blade. She must have done this a million or so times to each side and I felt like I was going to pass out from holding my breath, waiting for it to end. When it did end, I felt fine. If I had the memory of a fish, I wouldn't have known that some small Chinese lady had just beat the crap out of me.

The next day it felt like someone had punched me in about a dozen different places in my back. As I went about my day, though, it seemed to get better, so I had another brilliant idea, YOGA! It felt good to get a little exercise, but my back still felt tight. Massage, ibuprofen, yoga, it all helped, but didn't solve the problem, so I had to go with the last resort. I went to the doctor.

Friday morning I headed off to the hospital where the doctor took a whopping 10 minutes to talk to me and inform me that I had twisted my vertebrae. My guess is that I did it about three weeks ago in yoga. Why did I wait so long to go to the doctor? Because I thought my discomfort was related to stress, not an injury. As it turns out, I was wrong. So, she prescribed me some medicine, including a muscle relaxant that I insisted I didn't need, and sent me downstairs to a Chinese physiotherapist. She looked at me far longer than the other doctor, poking and prodding to find out exactly where it hurt, and boy did it hurt! Then, she gave me an adjustment.

Saturday, my back was feeling a lot better, but I woke up with a nasty sore throat and runny nose, the exact symptoms Dan had a week ago!! It was downhill from there, in part because I had to go to work. We had a professional development day, and I was miserable. I left early because I started to have a fever. At home, I couldn't get comfortable or warm. My nose ran and my throat was hard and dry, making it difficult to swallow and breath.

Today I am not feeling much better. I was well enough to get some work done, but I still feel like crap. I'm hanging on to the highlights of my week, Korean food and a haircut on Friday with Marty. Originally, Dan was going to come out as well, but he was still sick with his cold, so just the two of us went. When we got back, we decided to get our hair cut. We tried the "new" place by our apartments.

Ushered in by our hair washers we sat down and they began our half hour head massage. It felt wonderful, but it was clear that my hair washer had never washed hair like mine before. Twisting, pulling, and rubbing long hair into a ball may not be problematic for the smooth straight hair that most Chinese people have, but I was expecting my hair to be one big nest. It was. After rinsing, it took three people to comb my hair, a half an hour to cut it straight across, and another 45 minutes for a moisturizing treatment. The last part was the best. They literally beat the conditioner into my hair, rolled perfect ringlets and attached me to a steam machine that looked like a shower cap attached to a vacuum hose. The steam came out from two little holes on the top, making me look like an angry cartoon character, think Yosemite Sam. Two and a half hours after stepping into the shop, I stepped out with some fabulous hair.