Sit Less, Walk More

Inspirational song: Fifty-Fifty (Frank Zappa)

It has been fifteen years, give or take, since I last saw a chiropractor. I've been more of a physical therapy girl in all those years. But I had to take drastic action, because while the daily arthritis meds the doc prescribed reduced my pain levels, I still carried myself in that crumpled-up straw-wrapper position. Every step on my right leg felt like I was putting my foot down on a thick book, raising myself up as much as half an inch or more over the left side. As I expected, the interview portion of my appointment took up much more of my time than the actual adjustment. I had a lot to explain, telling a new person my lengthy medical history, filtering out irrelevant information and trying to include everything that would make a difference in how he handled me. I bent, stretched, and twisted, as far as I could, not faking the winces when I tried to bend to the right.

None of the adjustments were big movements. No miracle cures happened today. It was all about little pops, preliminary stretches. We loosened up several spots that had resisted moving for weeks. The big muscle along the right side of my spine refused to allow significant progress. But for all those limitations, I did see improvement. I estimated at the time that it was about fifty percent better than when I walked in. Since then, I've been able to walk a little more easily, bend somewhat, but sitting is still as bad as it has been for a week. How apropos that the chiropractor told me to sit less. He said stand, walk, or lie down on top of an ice pack, but definitely sit less.

That's what I'm hoping for, the ability to walk more. I've spent the last two weeks not feeling like going anywhere, right as my life started demanding a lot more interaction with people, evenly split between sitting and standing. I'm not ready to make any claims about a huge new health routine, but I am going to start needling myself about standing up and walking around enough to get that other fifty percent I need to be completely back to normal. And to that end, I guess I'll put away the computer and go wander around now.