10:30 a.m. CDT 04022017

I can tell you the exact moment that I knew my day would hold special challenges.  Thirty minutes after ten o’clock a.m.,  Central Daylight Savings Time on Sunday,  02 April 2017.

I turned right but the devilish little Tarlov cycsts turned left, straddling the two degenerated disks in my lower back. Caught unaware, I tried to recover, willing myself to stand still without success.  The weak muscles surrounding the whole mess raged in anger and I went down for the count.

A half-hour later, I made it out of the shower.

Thirty minutes after that, I got to a horizontal position on my bed.  Reconsidering, I spent an agonizing twenty minutes moving to a vertical position, creeping to the bathroom, and collapsing on the toilet.  I slowly reached above my head and snagged the Arnicare, which I then slathered on my back.  With another ten minutes of struggle, I got a mild muscle relaxant down from the medicine cabinet.  I crept back to bed and collapsed.

Eventually, I got dressed, inched downstairs, and poured a cup of coffee with shaking hands.

Eventually, I made it down the driveway to my car.

Now it’s nearly 4:00 p.m. and my trial exhibits for tomorrow’s 1:00 p.m. trial sit on my desk.  I’ve given instructions for their copying and the other tasks that my secretary will need to do.  I’m bagging the file for my 8:30 a.m. pre-trial. I won’t need it to argue what must be asserted.

I face a bit of uncertainty with regards to getting back out to the car and driving home.  But I know it’s got to be done.  I’ll retrieve the re-frozen ice pack from the refrigerator in the suite’s kitchen, take up the damned walking stick and the little angel bag in which I’ve stashed my wallet and phone.  I might — or might not — struggle back into my jacket, hat and scarf.  They might just have to be abandoned on the cupboard.

On a scale of Nirvana to Bosnia, I’m somewhere in between.  What sustains me is what has always sustained me:  The certain knowledge that plenty of folks have it worse; that in fact I have had it worse; and that tomorrow might well see me dancing again.

Oh, maybe not dancing. But you know.  A girl can dream.

It’s the second day of the fortieth month of My Really, Really Long Year Without Complaining.  I’m still smiling.  I’m still more or less sane.  There’s food in the fridge at home, and a little money in the bank, and a world of possibilities, some of which involve joy.  Life continues.

 

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