Life as we know it ...: Weekend report

Buddy and Lisa came over for the first time yesterday and accomplished what I would have bet would take SEVERAL days! They tidied up 3 acres of pasture, 3 paddocks, AND groomed all three horses in a single day! Amazing! I thought they would quit working before the end of the day and ride for a while, then finish up next week, but they kept working and got every single space cleaned up in just that one day. They'll be back next Saturday and will no doubt finish cleaning up in just a couple hours, and then they will have lots of time to exercise all three horses. Today while they groomed them, Ladybug loved on Lisa like she seldom does with anyone. She is NOT generally a friendly horse with strangers, but she loves Lisa! Buddy is a horse person, but Lisa has only been around them since they married a couple years ago. Apparently it's a natural thing for her. They have a single full sized horse, a miniature horse, a number of mini goats, chickens and . . . well, you can see that they're DEFINITELY animal folks. I am just SO happy to have gotten together with them!

I went to physical therapy myself yesterday, and was very impressed by the therapist. She figured out where my problem was very soon after she began the evaluation and began warning me about how some of the subsequent movements during the evaluation were going to hurt and which would not and she was right 100% of the time. (More than I knew myself -- I'm never sure when it's going to hurt and when it's not!) On the plus side, apparently the problem CAN be improved with therapy. I didn't think that would be the case for a pinched nerve (which apparently IS the problem), but the therapist says it can be treated. She gave me some instructions about how certain things will need to be done from now on (bending at the knees and not leaning forward to pick things up, etc.) Okay. I can accept that if she can get me out of pain!

I can't remember what all she said, but I do remember her saying that the bone on the right that you can feel over to the side at the base of your spine (pelvic bone? I don't know) was higher and tilted at a different angle from the left one as she did the initial physical exam.

Anyway, she said some nerves that run from the bottom five disks that the doctor said were out of alignment out to my leg muscles are being affected by that somehow. (She showed me how on a spine/hip skeleton she had there in the room and it made perfect sense, but I'll be darned if I can explain it.)

Anyway, I will be going to therapy three days a week for a while so we'll see what happens. In the meantime, I've ordered a largish lumbar support pillow to attach to my office chair - and every other chair I sit in, actually. She put one in place after my evaluation, and showed me how it would help a lot. She also showed me when I'm standing, that I can lean backward and my back actually feels good. It's only when I lean forward or to the side that I get those shooting pains. I never realized that before either.

Then after we finished with all the testing (which involved a LOT of pain) she hooked me up to one of those "tens" things for 15 minutes and it did help me get over the pain from all the movements I had to do so she could figure out exactly what needs done. Might get myself one of those, too. She said she would check with the insurance company about reimbursement for that, but if they won't I guess I could just buy one anyway -- they're not all THAT expensive.

Since he got home, Mark has been doing EVERYTHING for me - even taking Joey out. Poor guy. I just hope it helps.

Oh - I forget to mention that while Buddy and Lisa were out cleaning up the pasture and paddocks, they found all KINDS of tools AND that camera I lost a couple months back. Sigh. Buddy found it in the mud by the gate in Ladybug's paddock. I think I may have set it on the gate post while I was working with her, then forgotten to pick it up and it must have fallen off then. Darn!

I went online, though, and found a used one for less than half the price of a new replacement, so I went ahead and bought it. Hope it's as good as they said it was. I bought myself another camera after I lost that one that's a much higher resolution (16.1 compared to 10 megapixels), but it's just not nearly as good, in my opinion, as that one was. Or maybe I was just really used to the old one. Whatever the reason, Mark is getting the new one now, and I will keep the used version of the one I let get ruined. I'll tell you what -- I have GOT to start assuming that I will not remember anything at all and dealing with everything accordingly.

Here's the only picture that was on the disc in that camera - it's Bug's stall so it's obviously my own fault for having set the thing down SOMEWHERE out there and forgotten about it.