beat sciatica before vacation

I haven’t had nerve pain in over a week, a week which included a long photo walk and a long stand-up rock show. It might be cheating to say that I “beat” sciatica since I was pretty lax on my physical therapy. But apparently some half-hearted exercising plus the doc’s “tincture of time” prescription was all I needed. The trip is still two weeks away, but I think I’m officially in the clear. As long as I don’t drink the water, or, ya know…reinjure my back.

Friday the PT began experimenting on me with the Traction Machine. Do you know what the Traction Machine is? In the Middle ages, they called it The Rack; it was a torture device. They dragged you down to the dungeon, attached you to the rack at both ends, and stretched the demons right out of you. Now, I do have faith in the PT even though he’s a little mystified by both the sciatica and my, watchacallit…”spine”. Still, when he tied me into the machine, flipped the switch, and stepped away from it as it slowly built up tension, I got a little anxious. Ever seen a bartender open a tap over your glass and then walk away to tend to other things…for just a few seconds too long? Even though at worst the bar looses a few cents worth of beer, it’s an uncomfortable moment waiting for their attention to return. You want to alert them, or even reach over and flip off the tap, before the spillage begins. This was an analogous situation, except I was tied down with restraints. So I couldn’t flip the tap off, and if the tap had kept running, my body would’ve been torn in half. That sure was interesting.