The day after

Yesterday morning I slept till 7:30. This past week was my early week with Chandler and this getting up at 5:30 sucks. So 7:30 was pure heaven, obviously. I fed the kids, packed their bags and then grabbed a shower. The humidity was low enough that I straightened my hair but then saw just how much gray I have AND that I definitely need to re-color. The kids I ran out the door at 10:10 for a 20 minute drive to Mom's then I had to be back on the other side of town by 10:45. I was sweatin' it. I basically threw them at Mom's front porch and peeled out of the driveway, rounding the corner on two wheels - and in an Astro van that is quite a feat. Thankfully the kids are old enough they can pretty much tell Mom anything she needs to know.

I got to the chiropractor's office at 10:44. The little secretary/aide lady took me right back to a room, gave me a hot pack and adjusted the table into one of THE most uncomfortable positions I've ever been in (well, besides that nasty BDSM experiment in my early 20's...but I digress...) and I laid there trying to relax like she told me, but all I was doing was hurting worse. So I finally just gave up and sat up, which lately is not my position of choice. Sitting hurts. Laying down is good. Walking is even better than sitting, that's how bad it's been. I could hear the doctor running up and down the hall, opening doors and greeting people, then about 2 minutes later you'd hear a "oomph!" followed by "ohhhh!", so that meant he was adjusting in a fury. Guh-reat. I didn't want to be furiously adjusted - I wanted to be delicately fixed and made to quit hurting.

Enter Oh Great and Benevolent Doctor or Chiropractic. This man and I have nearly a 20 year history as doctor/patient, but it's been several years since I've needed him. I started seeing him when I was 14 and the bass drum in the high school marching band was wreaking havoc on my spinal alignment. At that time I was 5'1", maybe 120 pounds and because I gots rhythmn, played the GINORMOUS bass drum. I've seen bass drums now and they are so much smaller. Lucky little shits. In MY day....

Oops there I got all digressing again.

Okay where was I? Oh yeah...this doctor and I have a great relationship. He helped me through the bass drum incident, three pregnancies and just the general subluxation issues of life. Did ya like that $5 word there - subluxation? Got that from reading the walls during my electroshock therapy yesterday. Digression again...yep gotcha. So I told him that the pain was bad, that I thought it might be a kidney stone and was checking this out before I go sit at the indian clinic and have them all laugh at me if it's NOT a stone, and tell me that I just need to see a chiropractor. He has the most quiet, soothing voice I've ever heard and in his soothing, Mr. Rogers-type demeanor he asked, "Okay now....can you think of anything lately that might've well, prompted such a problem? Any wrecks? Accidents? Falls?" I conveniently left out the demolition derby last fall because he would've tsk'd at me for sure. So I told him that last Saturday I had cleaned off bookshelves, cleaned out closets and cabinets and he just nodded and slowly closed his eyes and said, "Ahhh...we have found the problem. See, Kristin, it's like this: When we get older we just can't do the things we used to do when we were younger."

WHEN WE WERE YOUNGER?

I just grimaced and said, "I'm only 32." He nodded again, put a gentle hand on my knee and said, "Well...the more gray hair we get...well, the easier it is for us to get down in our back."

Hold the phone there, Mr. Rogers. I am not "down in my back". My great grandmother got "down in her back". I am not by any means "down". I'm "down wit' dat", but definitely not "down in my back".

And then my insides melted when I came to the realization that my gray hair was oh so clearly visible in the dimmed light of the little room. And I felt tears pricking at my eyelids so I just sighed and said, "Okay, so can you fix me?"

This is where the man's disassociative personalites come into play. He's all calm and quiet and soothing until he lays hands on you. Then he turns into Mr. Rogers on steroids who is channeling a very angry Jesse "The Body" Ventura, in his pre-politics day.

Oh he makes you think that he's going to be gentle, doing some nice easy leg stretches on you, asking you about your children then wham he jerks on your leg, mumbling something under his breath about them being different lengths. So you recover from that breath-taking experience only to have him try to twist you in two by making your legs go right and your upper torso go wide left in hopes of possibly making them meet again under the table. Then reverse it all and do it again. Then as my head is woozy from the pain of being pretzle'd, he says in his "Let's go find Neighborhood Trolley" voice, "Okay, let's just sit you right on up here again, " and pulls you upright. And because you're still reeling from the previous take down, you don't realize that when he's crossing your arms over your chest that he's getting ready to push your body completely through the table and is going to finish the adjustment with you imbedded three full inches into the concrete flooring below.

He finishes off with a quick rub to your shoulders, a pat on the knee and some words that seem to somehow imply that you need therapy of some kind. Yes, psychotherapy as to why I saw you in the first place, you sadistic mo'fo. And physical therapy to make my broken body move once more and hopefully someday I'll walk without the braces again.

Oh but noooooooooo. The therapy he spoke of was putting four sticky pads at various points on my lower back, attaching aligator clips to the sticky pads and running electrical wires to oh I don't know something like a friggin' CAR BATTERY. Turn 'er on, wind 'er up and watch 'er go. Whoo HOO those are good times, boys and girls. The secretary/nurse, who I think dresses Goth on the weekends and wields a whip, said "Tell me when it hurts." Oh that is never a good statement. Ever. She then cranked the engine and it felt like little gnomes had chosen MY back to make their new garden spot. Little rakes, little hoes, possibly little roto-tillers were running amuck on my back. But instead of wimping out immediately and running screaming for the safety of my van, I opted to give it all a try. She cranked it up some more because I hadn't screamed uncle yet and the hoeing and raking started to scrape into the core of my very soul and that's when I uncle'd.

"Okay, now you just lie there and relax."

Oh I could've relaxed had I had about four Vicodin in my system at the time, a bottle of Wild Turkey in my hand and maybe even one of those marijuana cigarettes dangling from my lip. But none of those vices seemed to be available in the holistic doctor's office, go figure. Instead, I just read the charts on the walls. That's where I got the word "subluxation". My theory is that if you are undergoing shock therapy you can remember anything you read at the time. I have memorized the entire musculoskeletal system of the human body now. Abby's been having a little trouble with her math homework. I say let's hook her up to the truck battery and see how much she can learn in a weekend.

I left there sore and $40 poorer.

AND with an appointment for next Friday. I am taking all of my cookbooks. I figure I can read them while undergoing therapy and will never have to search for a recipe again.