Getting Healthy in San Diego one bone at a time!

Wednesday, May 14th — This afternoon, as I was struggling to get prone on the moving table, I was wisecracking about feeling like a mermaid thrown up on shore. I stand at the foot of the table, make sure the head/cervical section is level, the thoracic section is also level,  and the bottom section is slightly tilted downward (and the whole business has to be raised a bit so it’s about knee height for me). Then I kind of sprawl and kind of crawl onto it. I am not able to kneel directly, since my fake knees don’t bend terribly well; although the thick and cushy surface of this table makes semi-kneeling less painful than most other surfaces, I must admit. And then there I am, sprawling and creeping upward, hauling myself up — like a mermaid on shore — up toward the top. It’s an exercise in itself just to get in the right position, and I’m usually panting when I get there.

So I’m making smart-ass remarks about mermaids, and Dr. K says, “You know, we ought to have a clip-on mermaid tail that we could put on kids when they come for adjustments. They might like it.” And I say something about “How about some appropriately mermaid-like music? You could have a CD to play while the kid’s being adjusted.” And then Emily starts singing “Under the Sea”, from “The Little Mermaid.” It takes me that long to realize they are mocking me and my sprawly, crawly personal arrangement efforts.  And there I am, whining, “Hey! Don’t MOCK me!”, just as I do when my kids are making fun of me. Have I come full circle, from Toronto to La Jolla, only to find MOCKERY at the end of the line again? Hmmmmm…

Then comes the Martial Arts part. Once, I can’t remember in what context, I told Emily and Dr. K that long ago, when I was taking T’ai Chi and loving it, I learned to break boards. (Hey, maybe that’s one reason my hands are bad now…) And this coming weekend, David is going to Las Vegas to meet with Randy Couture and his son Ryan (http://xtremecouture.wordpress.com/), and couldn’t be more excited if he were planning a weekend at the North Pole with Santa all to himself and freebies at the toy workshop. Randy is the five-tine champion of world martial arts, and some kind of guru to David K, as far as I can tell. So the next wisecrack from David, after we have pretty well exhausted the Mermaid theme, is — “Roseanna, maybe I should take Betsy to Vegas with me. She could probably take Randy right out with one swing!” (demonstrations of me knocking Randy out ensue..)

And all at the same time, the table’s bottom part is moving up and down (with my legs flapping like that ol’ mermaid tail), and David is pushing on bone after bone along my back, and I am groaning involuntarily.

I thought for just a moment how odd this was… and then I relaxed and smiled into the crispy toilet-paper face mat. These folks are my friends! Only people who love you tease you like this.  This is how my three grown kids tease me — “Let’s mock Mum some more, she is so MOCKABLE!”  I have been lucky enough not only to find a chiropractor who is helping me get my body back from the Undead, so to speak, but also to find three good friends with whom I can giggle and joke, and who I know will continue to mock me whenever possible.

I love it.

Thanks for reading — Betsy

Saturday, May 10th – My good friend Tom P. in Palo Alto asked me a great question tonight about my re-exam chart. He asked if the 37% I was (sort of) bragging about and (sort of) feeling sad about was based on how far I had come from zero. That is: when I first walked in the door at Seaside Chiropractic on March 5th, for my initial examination, did I have ZERO capabilities? Or did I have ANY things that were okay on my initial exam?

His point was that if I had any motions that were not restricted on the first exam, then I was moving up from somewhere north of zero… so I could be quite a bit farther along than I thought. Oh, I really wanted that to be the case! But now that I look at the chart again, all those extremely teeny little letters and numbers, it IS a zero in the lower left-hand corner of the chart. And I recall that the only thing I could do at “admittance”, that wasn’t deemed “restricted” by Dr. K when he told Roseanna what to write down, was that I was able to touch my chin to my chest.  AND THAT WAS ALL.  So I have, indeed, been pretty much starting from zero.  Sorry, Tom, it was a great idea, but… alas.  I will have to live with 37% for a while. There will be another re-exam after 12 more sessions, which should put me somewhere in June.  Hasta el proximo…

On Thursday last (as the Brits say), I had the pleasure of seeing a young 30something guy in the office being worked on by Dr. Klein. This guy has been going for chiropractic adjustments, off and on, since he was 12! I found it interesting to hear Dr. K say that he can feel the difference in joints that have been kept flexible since childhood, and joints that have just gone their own way, so to speak, and stuck together when they felt like it. I am pretty sure he said it better, but that’s how it seemed to me.

If I had known when I was younger what I know now… I think I would have found a chiropractor for my kids, not to mention myself. Now my babies range from 47 to 37, and have various degrees of aches and pains. Maybe some of them could have been avoided if they had had the benefit of chiropractic adjustments as children. There is an excellent college of chiropractic in Toronto, where they grew up. If I’d only taken the blinders off 40 years ago…

(But then there was my dad, not at that point only a voice in my head, saying, “Son of a gun! Look at that huge college of chiropractic! Can you beat that! You know, sweetheart, that stuff is such a bunch of hooey…”  Okay, so I shouldn’t be blaming Daddy for my ignorance. It’s my own fault I didn’t look into it before. Thank goodness for CraigsList and that ad from David Klein, looking for an assistant in February!)

Thanks again for reading — Betsy

Tuesday night, May 6th — I waited to write this till I got the chart of last Thursday’s re-exam. Okay, okay… I set an unrealistic goal for myself. I was so sure I’d be up to 50% of my possible improvement! Shot myself in the foot once more, just as I do so often. Why am I not learning my cosmic lesson any better, I wonder?

Anyhow: I WAS pleased that the chart shows me up to 37%. That’s not far off 40%… and that’s kind of close to 50%… (shut up, shut up, shut up , Betsy! Stop doing that!)

David Klein said yesterday that he was "shocked by the results," and I guess he meant that as a GOOD kind of shock. He was on about my foot a lot too — he said that at the beginning, when he called it "a block of wood at the end of your leg," he also noticed a sort of "unhealthy gray color." Doesn’t that sound enticing, though! Now, he says, the color is better, the edema is gone, and the bones inside are beginning to move. That all sounds pretty good to me. Maybe I really won’t have to go under the knife again!

Also, DK reminded me not to expect to keep improving to such a steep degree each four weeks. He thinks it’ll level off a little now, and was warning me not to get discouraged and give up. "We may have taken care of all the relatively easy problems," said he. "Now we’ll get into the more difficult adjustments, and those will take time to show up." Rats! I get a little taste of success, and in my usual Capricorn way (determined, hardworking, boring in the extreme because of that determination) I don’t WANT to level off. I want MORE! MORE! MORE!

Maybe I’m just crabby because there weren’t any goodies on the desk yesterday…

I think it’s getting easier to load myself onto the table face down. But not much. Good grief, yesterday I was flapping about like a mermaid trying to haul herself up onto the shore! (Nicer than a fish out of water, you see.) Once I’m arranged, it is easier to stay that way for a while, I do note that.

Well, tomorrow is another day (thank you, Scarlett O’Hara)! My shoulders were pretty damn sore all day today, and the upper arms too, but maybe that is because I’ve been doing a big editing/rewriting job and have been at the computer for hours on end. That can’t be too good for them. Another adjustment tomorrow… I can hardly wait.

Thanks for reading,

Betsy

Friday, May 2nd — When my oldest son Danny and his wife Jackie were first married, Dan celebrated every “monthiversary” by bringing Jackie a rose for each month of their marriage.  One rose in September, two roses in October, three roses in November… you get the picture. It went on for a couple of years, till it got too expensive (and they’ve been married now for nearly 18 years!), and I always thought it was such a neat thing to do.  The concept of “monthiversary” has stuck in my mind ever since.

Well, on Monday I will be celebrating two months as a patient at Seaside Chiropractic! It’s my two-rose monthiversary! I find it incredible that it’s only been two months.  It seems as if I’ve known David Klein, Roseanna, and Emily for years. Their encouragement and enthusiasm has been so supportive, as my “antique frame” (my mother’s expression) has begun to be more flexible, and even — dare I say it? — has begun to approach the norm.  At least, my spine is much closer to the normal curve, according to CAM and Dr. Klein.

I had my second re-test on Thursday. I can hardly wait for my Monday appointment, when I’ll find out exactly how much I have regained since March 25th.

That said, I should in all honesty say that I am not pain-free yet, by any means. By the time I get to Seaside’s office at around 1 p.m., I can usually assign a 2 to each of my areas that’s under reconstruction, so to speak.  That would be both shoulders, the hands, and the right foot.  But when I get up at around 6:30 a.m., it would still be more like a 4.  I shuffle to the bathroom and pop a Norco and a Celebrex; then, by the time I’ve finished feeding the cats and making the coffee, and the oatmeal’s on the stove, I’m getting back closer to 2 again.

I am celebrating on Monday, my two-rose day.  The fact that I can make the contrast between a pain level of 4 and a pain level of 2, all within a couple of hours, astonishes me. The fact that I can turn my upper body to either side, sufficiently that someone standing in front of me can see the back of the shoulder, ASTONISHES me. The fact that I look forward all weekend to the next time I get adjusted, with all the accompanying discomfort of the moving table and all the rest of it, also astonishes me. 

When I started this blog in early March, I had no idea that only two months later I would have come so far. There are still a lot of monthiversaries to celebrate before I’m done, but this one is making me happy already.

It’ll be a two-rose day for sure!  Thanks for reading — Betsy

PS — Oh dear, something very sad I should mention.  I seem at some point to have hit the wrong combination of buttons while I was trying to manage my comments, and like magic, every one of the comments on my blogs has vanished! Some were really nice, too: there were some good ones from Dr. Klein, one from each of my sisters, one from my granddaughter, and several from Seaside Emily, my favorite Southern belle.  I am so sorry! So, apologies to those people who were kind enough to visit and to leave a comment. Come back again and say something else, and I promise I will be less quick with the trigger finger in future.  My bad!

Monday, April 28th — Those Rice Krispies guys have nothing on me! This was my third day on the moving table. It takes me several minutes to get arranged into the prone position; Dr. Klein has time to adjust somebody else while I’m getting there. I flop around like a fish out of water trying to lie on my face, then when I finally achieve it, I heave a huge sigh of relief. After DK messes with my back for a bit, he says, “Now flip over on your back.”  Still can’t flip.  It’s always another flop.  But I get there eventually, and then he works on the shoulders, feet, and arms/hands/fingers.

But I digress… back to the sound effects.  I could hear the snaps, crackles, and pops as he leaned on my shoulders and various parts of my back.  I guess he could hear them too, because he kept saying, “Beautiful!  Oh, that was a good one!  Lovely!”  When he was done, while I was flopping over, he said he’d gotten more cracks out of me today than ever before.

Dr. Klein is using CAM now just on the lumbar and sacral regions, as I believe I said before. Even CAM was on my side today.  There were three or four vertebrae that were clearly out of alignment on the diagram, and after getting pounded with 25 pounds of pressure, all of them were observably better aligned. I asked if I could assume that the upper parts of my spine were normalized now that they were no longer showing up on the diagram. Dr. K said no, I could not assume that; it just means that he is now adjusting those areas manually instead of with the robot.  Oh well… it was worth a try.

I’m looking forward to my second re-test on Thursday afternoon!   These re-tests are administered about every 12 or 13 sessions, to see how much progress has been made in regaining function.  Last time I had regained 26% of the expected total! I would just love it if I scored another 25% this time, but I suppose that’s unrealistic.  I’ll be happy with anything that shows some progress.

I’ll report again on Thursday. Thanks for reading — Betsy

Saturday, April 16th — I had a visit with my rheumatologist, Dr. H. Arthur Silverman, at Scripps Clinic, on Thursday, having not seen him since December, before my journey with chiropractic began. I needed a new prescription from him for Norco (yes, I am still taking opioid painkillers, although not nearly so many as I did a couple of months ago), so I made sure I got the prescription before I told him I was going to a chiropractor. I suppose I thought he might fling open the door of the examining room and tell me never to darken it again, or something like that. I was actually surprised at how receptive he was.  He sat down and said, “Tell me about it,” and I did. When I finished, Dr. H. Arthur Silverman said, “Well, you’re looking terrific; whatever is happening, it’s all good if you’re feeling so much better. Just keep it up, and I’ll see you in six months!”

It was sort of anticlimactic, actually.  Yesterday, I had said to David Klein, “Wonder what I can say to my rheumatologist tomorrow.” And David said, “How about bye-bye?” No, not just yet; but I’m keeping an open mind.  Maybe someday.  I figure, if I can be comfortable at some point without taking any pain medication, I will be ready to say bye-bye to my  rheumatologist, who has been really helpful to me up to now. Dr. H. Arthur Silverman couldn’t have been kinder or more supportive to me over the past few difficult years, and I appreciate all he’s done for me.

Not just yet, as I said.  Here it is almost midnight on a Saturday night, and I’m in the middle of one of my Midnight Perambulations. That’s what I call it when the peripheral neuropathies in my feet (caused, I suppose, by nerve damage during the last two hip revisions) start giving me electric shocks and long, deep aches. I can’t lie down quietly, and now I can’t really even sit comfortably because there are those toes, twingling away. “Dem toes, dem toes, dem daaam toes…”  Now, I take Lyrica for the neuropathies (thank you, Dr. Silverman!); and it helps, in that I only have to Perambulate about twice a week now instead of every night, as I did last fall. And I don’t have to cry about the pain any more. But I am hoping that the chiropractic adjustments will eventually free some poor little nerves that have been SUBLUXATED — love that word! — trapped between the vertebrae, and maybe the toes won’t twingle any more.  Here I was, all happy because I have gotten back some of the sensation in the sole of my right foot.  I should have kept quiet about that, maybe I jinxed myself.

So, right at this point in time, I guess I have a foot in both camps, as they say.  I’m not giving up the drugs, but I’m getting as much chiropractic treatment as I can. Let’s see what happens.  It’ll be a surprise.

Wednesday, April 23rd — … you may get it!  Well, I got it today, all right. Ever since mid-March I have been wistfully watching all these 20somethings and 30somethings at Dr. Klein’s office, as they lay on these moving chiropractic tables with their legs moving up and down, and Dr. Klein punching them out on their backs and cracking their necks.  I was LUSTING after those tables, let me tell you, it looked like so much fun!  Once I even asked him if it was a realistic goal to think that by July I might be able to use those tables. He said Yes.

Little did I dream that today would be The Day! A lot of people had cancelled for one reason or another, and when I arrived at 12:40 he was So Not Busy.  This was really unusual, as normally he’s running from table to table like an ant on a plate, and at the same time having three conversations and doing something on the computer as well.  So you can imagine how happy I was when he told me to lie on my face on the Moving Table and we’d give it a try.  “Veeeeeery slowly,” said he, “and veeeeeery gently.”

I arranged myself gracelessly prone, with my face in the vertical pit covered with paper.  Yuck, I do so hate that paper! But there it is… There was a bit of a hassle figuring out what to do with my arms. The younglings I had been so admiring stretch their arms out above their heads and grasp something, but my poor ancient arms wouldn’t go that straight.  I finally dangled one to the floor and tucked the other one on some sort of armrest below the table.

Okay: so then the machine took over, and my legs started moving up and down from the hip, slowly indeed, and gently indeed.  Then Dr. Klein did some of those huge pushes on the backs of the shoulders (”Deeeeep breath, now let it out…”) and around the ribcage. I am always grateful that I have not one speck of osteoporosis when he does that; I imagine my ribs cracking like eggshells, because this guy is pretty BIG, folks.  And next there was something quite weird-feeling.  The top third of the table can be set to the left or right of center. So first I lay there in a left-L-shape, and then in a right-L-shape, while more pummelling took place.

Then — “Okay, flip over onto your back.”  Everybody’s a comedian: my flipping days are over, long ago. So I lumbered over till I was on my back (almost got stuck, almost couldn’t get my arm out from under the table, almost fell off the table).  Emily was trying not to giggle, God bless her.  Once I arrived at the supine position, the neck-cracking took place. Snap, and snap, and a couple more snaps… woo-hoo!  Then arm-pulling and finger-pulling, then foot-kneading and toe-pulling, and I was nearly done. Boy, I WAS nearly done, too.

I got to have CAM run over the lumbar and sacral vertebrae while I sat on the table. I think CAM is feeling a bit neglected by me since I moved into the Table Room a couple of weeks ago. At any rate, it messed around with one of the vertebrae so the diagram showed it was more out of alignment than before. Hey, like I said, everybody’s a comedian, even the robot.

So that was what I had been longing for, for weeks.  Who knew!  As I said, “Be careful what you wish for… you may get it!”  This is a whole new chapter in my chiropractic story, I guess.  And again, thank you, David, for all your help!

Wednesday, April 23rd – I meant to write about this on Monday, but LIFE intervened, as it so often does.  My regular therapeutic yoga session was on Monday morning.  Kelli, my physical therapist/yoga instructor, comes to my house now twice a week rather than my going to a studio.  I have a massage table set up in the front hall on the days she comes, and over the weekend so I can do the exercises by myself.  A huge red Swiss ball also sits in the front foyer, with a bolster, a strap, and a yoga brick.  When anyone comes to the front door, I usher them in with “Welcome to Betsy’s Gym: our rates are excellent!”  Might as well make a joke out of necessity; the front foyer was the only place in the house where there was room for a table!

Anyway, one of the yoga exercises I do in a modified form is the Tree Pose. You see pictures of this one in its original standing form — a person standing on one leg, the other one bent at the knee and the sole of the foot resting on the standing calf, arms usually extended over the head and palms together. No way in the world I could do that one; but Kelli is a genius at modifying useful poses for my particular body problems.  So there I was, getting into Tree Pose: on my back on the table (can’t ever lie on the floor again in my life, alas!), my left sole flat up against the wall, and my right leg bent with the sole touching the left calf.  Suddenly Kelli said, “Hey, you did that yourself! I didn’t have to arrange your foot for you!” And yes indeed, I had, without even thinking about it.  Moreover, I could feel the sole of my foot against my other leg.  Now, that was completely new, since my toes and feet on both sides have been somewhat numb for, oh, at least a year.

I did a little trial run of wiggling my toes, which is also something I haven’t been able to do for ages.  They are not exactly nimble enough to play the piano with, but hey, they’re moving a little bit! This change really snuck up on me.  I didn’t even realize it was happening till there it was.  This has got to be a result of Dr. Klein’s work on my feet, and maybe of the spinal adjustments as well.  My guess is that some of the nerves running to the feet and toes have been blocked in subluxations, and now have been at least partially released by the adjustments. (If you’ve read the cartoon books on the Seaside Chiropractic website, you know what a subluxation is. There will be a short quiz… — better study up!)

So once again, woo-hoo! and thank you, David, for giving me back my toes and my left sole.  Onward and upward! — Betsy

Monday, April 14th – How can this BE?? I haven’t made any new postings to this blog in a couple of weeks. I guess Life just caught up with me, and now I have some catching up to do myself.

Here are some of the highlights since the last posting:

• Cheng Cheng presented me with the graph of my re-test. Wow! I felt like having it framed and hanging it on the wall. (Are you over-reacting a little teensy bit, Betsy? Naaah, anybody would feel this way!) It’s a straight diagonal line UP, no bumps, at what appears to be approximately a 45-degree angle. The legend tells me it shows I have recovered 26.1% of a possible 90% functionality. Cervical (neck) vertebrae are no longer misaligned, thoracic (shoulder and chest area) vertebrae are no longer misaligned, lumbar (lower back) rotation is no longer limited to the left. In English, that means I can twist from the waist to the left, but twisting to the right is still limited. Looks like there is still work to be done there. More work to be done, I see, in the sacral area (lowest back, down by the tailbone), the shoulders, and the feet; but I can live with that, as I watch the improvements happening. After I’ve completed 12 more sessions, there will be another re-test, and I am confidently expecting to find that I’ve improved 50%!!
• Dr. Klein has started working on my spine on the stationary chiropractic table, manually, instead of just using CAM while I am sitting up. This means I have to arrange myself prone on the table: not a graceful process, I can tell you. I hate lying with my face in a paper-covered groove. I can breathe, that’s the purpose of the groove; but when he says, “Take a BIIIIIG breath,” I get a mouthful of that paper. It’s a little bit more crisp than toilet paper (kind of like the European toilet paper I remember from a trip to Spain in 1960 !), but still soft enough to get in the way of comfy breathing. Then Dr. Klein says, “Okay, now FLIP OVER onto your back.” Ha ha ha! “Flip” is hardly in my vocabulary; what I do is more like LUMBER over. It’s like some hippopotamus who’s been having a nice mud bath and now turns herself over to do the other side. It’s rather embarrassing, actually. But hey — a couple of months ago, I couldn’t even do this, so I shouldn’t complain, I suppose.
• The Feet… oh, the feet, especially the right one! The first time David Klein worked on that foot with his hands, he made an awful face and said, “Oh my god, it feels like a block of wood attached to your leg!” I guess the bones inside are all stuck together. I knew I couldn’t wiggle my toes any more, and I knew I couldn’t rotate my ankle. But why, I wonder, did the orthopedic guys say there was nothing to be done to relieve the pain in that foot except FUSION? If the bones are already fused, in effect, what good would that do? I would rather take a chance that David’s going to be able to break up some of the cartilage adhesions and get the bones moving again. If, a year or so from now, he tells me he’s done all he can for that foot, and if it’s still all stuck and wooden, then maybe I will think about surgical fusion. But I bet that won’t be the case, because already… already!… I am seeing my toes move a bit, and the ankle and foot are less painful. This chiropractic stuff feels like some kind of miracle to me. Or maybe it’s just magic, and David Klein is the wizard. (Oh yeah, forgot to mention — he’s working away on the left foot too. Maybe I’ll end up with a matched pair again.)
• The Shoulders: these were the guys that were going to have to be surgically replaced within the next couple of years, remember? Well, almost without realizing when it happened, I can now twist around in the driver’s seat and put my right arm along the back of the passenger seat, and look out the back window to see if any cars are about to mow into me. (This is critical when trying to back out of parallel parking in front of Seaside Chiropractic, since the entire street is being torn up for a huge “improvement project,” and the lane is very tight.) They both still burn and scream at me when I move just a fraction of an inch too far, but they’re getting better. They are getting better. There’s another miracle. I would bet good money that I won’t need to have those surgeries done. David Klein is pretty certain he can restore enough range of motion and mobility, and reduce the pain enough, that I won’t need replacements.

Where in the world has CHIROPRACTIC been all my life? Or where have I been, not seeing that chiropractic was there?

Okay, that’s enough wallowing. I am now officially Caught Up. I want to thank some great folks for taking the time to read this blog, and posting comments. Seaside Emily, here’s to you (clink!) — and dk, l’chaim to you. You guys are the best.

Thursday, March 27th — Here’s something interesting I found in the e-mail newsletter of Longevity, a British health magazine I think I’ll start reading soon.  How about this?

“HANDY FASHION HINT:  If you lug your life around in an oversized handbag, take note: Carrying a bag that weighs more than 10 percent of your body weight can cause improper balance, cautions the American Chiropractic Association (ACA). To prevent your heavy hold-all from becoming a health risk, avoid placing its weight on one side of your body by frequently swapping shoulders. When buying a new bag, pick one that has a wide shoulder strap that can be worn over your head, as this will help to distribute its weight evenly across your body. Lastly, make it a habit to de-clutter your handbag on a regular basis.”

I am certainly guilty of putting most of my worldly goods into my bag and slinging it over my left shoulder, almost every day. My excuse is that I use the cane on the right side. You lose a whole arm for carrying stuff when you have to use a cane for walking.  And I have a terrible time “de-cluttering”:  I NEED so much stuff with me! Makeup… my wallet (heavy, maybe I should take out all the coins)… two key rings (one for house and car security, one for car door and ignition)… my water bottle, usually fresh out of the freezer… and the lighter things like a handkerchief, business card case, small hairbrush, sunglasses, reading glasses, shopping list. Now, how dumb do you have to be not to realize that a decades-long habit of using a shoulder bag just MIGHT have something to do with the fact that your shoulders have virtually disintegrated?

I really have to work on this. It seems ridiculous to be so thrilled with my improving shoulder range of motion and lessening pain, and then to walk out of the chiropractic office with 12 pounds of junk weighing down one of the shoulders. It’s like what someone told me years ago, when I was a teenager. That was a time when just about everybody smoked, and just about everybody could hardly wait to be able to pass for 21 so we could drink. And then somebody said to me one day: “Smoking and drinking alcohol simultaneously is just like kicking yourself in the butt so you’ll go faster, and beating yourself on the head to slow yourself down.”

Is there a parallel here?  Or perhaps a paradox?