Gon out backson. Bisy backson.

Just like Christopher Robin, I've had a ridiculously busy two weeks and have not updated this page much. Here's the finer points:

• Wednesday 5/13: Poi lesson w/Isa at the Ninja Loft.
• Saturday 5/16: Saw mom and little bro! Mom and Linz helped me out & came along for 2nd viewings with my realtor.
  
• Sunday 5/17: Poi workshop at the Catalyst Loft. I'll post about that separately when I get a minute.
• Tuesday 5/19: Made my first offer on everyone's favorite condo & received a counter offer.
  
• Thursday 5/21: Came to terms & went under contract(!)
• Friday 5/22: Hired a home inspector. I'll take pix next Thursday during the inspection.
  
• Saturday 5/23: Received a call from my realtor. She told me that the sellers had a leak in the half bathroom and that it got under the tile. The owners brought in their plumber & now are letting me choose new tile and paint colors & will hire someone to fix it for me. Yay!
• Currently: Taking deep breaths and praying that nothing too crazy shows up in the inspection...

Physical therapy is still going well. Progressing to newer and more difficult exercises with balance balls and light medicine balls. Yesterday afternoon I did a big spring cleaning and probably lifted more things than I should have so I've been icing this morning.

Today I'm going to fix up my bike since cycling is lower impact than running. The lake trails are looking good now that it's consistently warm outside!

5 pounds, 6 pounds, 7 pounds

Yesterday morning in PT, I graduated to doing weights with my exercises. Oh yeah!

Melissa even had me do something that would make Trainer Tom cry.

Looks simple enough but those are hard! It was a struggle to do 20 per leg while keeping good form. Definitely spent a lot of the day yesterday at work getting up close and personal with an ice pack.

Tonight I'm attempting my first formal poi lesson in four years. Isa Isaacs of Temple of Poi is visiting Chicago this week and offering lessons and workshops to the fire dancing community. Very exciting to have one of my old teachers from San Francisco in town! I let her know about my injury so we're laying off complex behind the back tricks but I'm very much looking forward to learning some new moves.

AWEA, PT & FMJ

This week is full of acronyms.

Yesterday I spent 4 hours at the AWEA Windpower 2009 Conference & Exhibition. Quite a lot of fun! I ran into people I knew from Austin, filled in at my company's booth for a little bit, convinced the guy running the DeLorme booth to upgrade my broken PN-20 to a PN-40 & met a ton of new people. The only bad part was that after walking around the conference that long with a heavy bag, I needed to take a break and snuggle up with an ice pack.

This morning I went back to physical therapy. No new homework sheets but we started on some exercises in the office involving exercise balls and foam rolling pins. I also learned that Melissa and I are neighbors which is kind of a fun coincidence.

Tonight marked the second Full Moon Jam of the summer fire dancing season. Last month I was able to perform but this month I helped with the setup and the safety team, which was a lot of fun! I got to talk to everyone & carry around a blow torch to light people's tools. Check out this Fire Crew:










I didn't get very good pix of the fire dancing because my little point and shoot is not equipped for long exposures but the yellow arm bands on the safety team looked great!

Forward momentum

This morning I went to physical therapy and graduated to two new exercises. Yay!



























My physical trainer spent some time loosening up my lower back muscles and doing some realignments before we got into working out with the resistance balls. Right away she asked me if I tend to cross my legs when I'm sitting and of course I am guilty as charged! So part of my homework before I go back to PT again on Thursday is to focus on keeping both feet planted firmly on the ground when I'm in a chair.

The best news was that Michelle said that I could start adding pilates once a week since I've done a good job of keeping up with my core strength homework. Very exciting to be making some progress!

Ow...

This is a little bit graphic so feel free to skip if you're squeamish.

I picked up copies of my xrays on Friday and to be honest, they're still freaking me out a little bit! I was standing up straight when the technician took this one:






























Please excuse the cabinet and the window in the background - I had to take this picture in the kitchen because there aren't any unobstructed stretches of white wall in the apartment! The random object in the area where my navel should be is a piercing & not anything that I swallowed.

Yesterday, I picked up a friend from the airport who is visiting Chicago for the AWEA conference this week and tried to be helpful with his luggage. Mistake! So I'm spending a gorgeous Sunday afternoon on my back watching Arrested Development DVDs and doing my physical therapy homework. I'm hoping that being disciplined pays off quickly because I joined a beach volleyball team that starts on June 2.

Don't worry, I will be sure to get cleared w/my doctor when I'm done with physical therapy before actually playing. I gave up all of my lucrative flag football endorsements and dance classes for most of the spring so I'm just excited about the possibility of getting back to being active again!

Let's get physical

Yesterday I went to my first PT session. Como se dice awesome?

My physical therapist Melissa at the IL Bone & Joint Institute is great. I would guess that we're about the same age. She's very friendly and has an excellent bedside manner.

First, we tested my flexibility. For a normal person, I'm still extremely flexible but for myself it's a big disappointment to know that I have a lot of ground to make up! Then, she had me lie down on the table to study my alignment. She noticed that my left hip sits higher than my right hip and did some adjustments to make me more even. The next thing she wanted to see was where my pain was coming from and to test my reflexes. Since everything seemed to be in good working order, she decided to give me a few pages of homework:























Easy peasy.

Or so I thought until I went home and did them on my own!

Some of these are definitely a challenge, especially by the third set of ten. The exercises look deceptively easy on paper, but if you hold each position for 5-10 seconds and are sure to keep your core muscles tight, it feels kind of like pilates. Since these moves are working the injured area, I woke up sore this morning. But pain is the latent state of affairs these days anyway so I'm happy to put myself through some hard work as long as I start making some progress. No pain, no gain!

If I can master these 8 exercises, Michelle will have me move on to some more difficult ones next week.

Beat on the back

Last week, I learned that I herniated the L4 disk in my lower back. I won't lie, I'm in some pretty awful pain right now. Sitting too long hurts, standing too long hurts and I'm having a hard time sleeping because that hurts too!

I've had lower back pain for a few years but chalked it up to challenging my flexibility. I take several dance classes per week and perform on stage as a fire dancer. I've tried chiropractors and acupuncture in the past to manage the pain, but I finally decided to use my health insurance two weeks ago and find out what's going on down there.

The orthopedic surgeon took some x-rays and I have got to say... shocking. I didn't know that spines could bend sideways! It made me think about what it would look like if someone took a crowbar and pounded on Sue. Poor tyrannosaurus.

My doctor asked me to come back for a MRI so I went in last week. I was lucky to have my MRI in an Open MRI and not in a Closed MRI machine.

This is what an Open MRI looks like:



















Not too terrible. Less claustrophobic since your head can stay outside of the machine vs. a Closed MRI which is the tube-style machine. MRI's are pretty loud though. It sounds somewhat like a slightly muffled construction zone while it's taking photos of your insides.

Monday this week, I went back to my doctor and he confirmed the herniation. I was prescribed a month's worth of physical therapy and muscle relaxers to help me sleep and told to continue using Alleve and ice packs to manage pain during the day.

So far I think that the muscle relaxers are helping. They make me tired so I can fall asleep but I don't think they're helping me stay rested. I've beaten my alarm clock to the punch nearly every morning this week. But, falling asleep in the first place is a big step forward so I'll take what I can get!

We'll see how I do with physical therapy when I go for my first session today.