A Day in the Life - The Chiropractor
Posted on: May 20, 2005 9:32 PM
It's been a month since my last chiropractor's visit. In that time I have spent at least 10 hours a day working at the PC. In that time I have typed about 60,000 words. In that time I have typed god alone knows how many keystrokes. It's no wonder I hurt. So today I am off for my regular monthly visit to get "adjusted."
Yes I know that the idea of me being anything close to "adjusted" is pretty funny but you know I didn't come up with the term. I blame it on American Chiropractic Association (ACA), making the world think that getting someone to pop your joints makes you adjusted. *rolling my eyes* Wouldn't you like to see the ACA and the American Psychological Association (APA) face off in one of those Celebrity Boxing matches to settle who gets to use the term? Maybe that's just a flaky academic's idea of fun. LOL Oh well never mind. Booming announcers voice "And now back to our story"
So at 7:30 a.m. I throw on some comfortable clean clothes. My usual work attire consists of chambray shirts and loose pants on cool days, and shorts and teeshirts on warm days. Normally I look a little nicer when I go out and about, but come on the chiropractor is not a formal attire venue. Especially since you know you are gonna get pulled on and pushed on and rolled out and maybe even electrified. LOL And I jump in my car for the 20 minute drive to the docs office.
I get to wonder the back country roads to Scipio Indiana, a great way to start out the morning. Right now the catalpa trees are in bloom so the road is littered with shed blooms after last nights storms. Catalpa trees are my favorite though most people around here sorta hate them. They get these long seed pods which as the tree website says, "can be a litter problem." But come on folks they are beautiful when they are in flower so you gotta deal with the litter later, so what.
At Scipio I hop on the two lane state road into metropolitan downtown North Vernon Indiana. Yes they really need to repaint The North Vernon sign. Can't believe the "C" in County is peeling that badly.
I grabbed this shot of the front window of the doctors office. It's a great optical illusion...the window the bricks the shutters the curving print on the glass. *starts to reel* Oh my
I've always wondered what the building originally housed. All I know is there is a keystone that says "1959." The year I was born, yes I am that old. LOL Which is kinda cool synchronicity - it's here I'm here. Sychronicity is everywhere.... everywhere. *manical laugh*
After waiting in the outer receiving area, I get lead into one of the two treatment rooms. The rooms are tall and small so the picture makes it look very dark. 
It's not nearly as Elizabethan as it appears, though the space certainly does have overtones of the torture chamber in this picture. Wait it does in real life too...though this is help you torture not just pain filled torture. Hummm or is it. Hummm
The walls of this room hold some interesting prints of the human musculoskeletal system. And they are very freakystrange. One is a realistic drawing of a women with her bones superimposed on her clothing. *shivers* Very freaky. You can see a bit of her arm on the left of the picture. The others are anatomy drawings with different parts of the system highlighted by colors that I don't think occur naturally in the human body...at least not on large areas. Like the poster on the back wall. I simply do not believe that the human buttox contains bright blue muscles...how could anyone wear white pants if this were true. I mean come on you'd have well...muscle lines showing though, at least on us very pale northern european types you would.
Ok so I get into the main treatment room and Trevor, my Doc, gets to beat up on me....and I pay him for it. Is this warped or what?
I had his assistant grab one pic of the "treatment" process. Trevor is realigning my right shoulder which gets far to much of a workout when I type and mouse...I'm VERY right handed. Which means more wear and tear since I work at a keyboard.
In the picture it looks like it hurts...well it does. But when the "adjustment' is done it feels so much better. No pain no gain.
p.s. This picture is not staged so that look on his face must be naturally occurring. I may be rethinking my respect for the man. LOL
What you don't get to see, cause pictures would have been too weird, is me laying face down on a table similar to the one pictured above, while Trevor raises panels in the bed and then pushes down on my back to kick my spine into correct position. THIS HURTS! But without the process my back hurt much more. To much typing, sitting in desk chairs, and driving for hours to get to campus. What can I say wear and tear is not a good thing, it's the road miles...those long dusty road miles. LOL
Then I get to flip over on my back and he adjusts each of my toes individually. Picture a sadomasochistic version of "One Little Piggy, Two Little Piggy." Then he adjusts my ankles, knees, and hips. All of this helps to keep me on my feet and moving pain free.
After all the popping is done I get to change rooms and spend some time laying on a table that has a roller inside. The roller runs up and down my back loosening the muscle to help the readjusted bones to stay in their new positions. It feels a bit like being worked over by a commercial dough kneading machine. And yes I have big feet, big skinny feet, big ski feet as my brother says.
Sometimes if my back muscles are really tight they hook up electrodes to make the muscles activate while the rollers are working. While the process works very well it is a bit Frankensteinian. LOL AHRGGGGGG The secret of making the electrodes work it to make sure they turn up the current until you want to scream...then let it work for a few seconds and the pain deadens the nerves so it doesn't hurt any more. And no I don't like pain, this is not a masochistic thing for me, it's an offset a little pain here for much less pain later.
The frequent shocks are really strange...laying there being kneaded and receiving periodic electrical pulses. Hummmm I wonder if you could get a full body jolt by hooking the electrodes up to your head? May have to check that out on my next visit. *fake German accent* Dis could be wery intewesting.
So now everything is back where it should be and I have written my check, scheduled my next appointment, and am off to drive home to do more typing. Seems like a vicious cycle doesn't it.
Oh well, welcome to two hours of my day. Thanks for joining us and please come back next week when we will be investigating the proper way to test a melon for ripeness while standing on one foot in your local supermarket. Maybe I can wear a formal for that entry? But then again maybe not.
Years ago I had a co-worker who had severe carpal tunnel syndrome. Her doctor told her she had to start mousing with her left hand as part of her physical therapy. At some point after college I started getting twinges in my right forearm from computing, and I decided I'd rather be proactive than wait until it was too late, so I switched to left-hand mousing. It took a while to get used to, but it was such a good idea. Now I have no problem with it at all, and no problems with tendonitis or carpal tunnel. It might be worth a try.
Posted by: freddy at May 20, 2005 11:25 PM