A Sudden Bump in the Road

Two weeks ago my hip got mad. Screaming mad in fact. "Why, why, why?" I asked. Well, ok. I freely admit I knew the answer: I got hooked on winter hiking in January and hiked eight 4000' peaks plus miles and miles of local trails in ten weekends. Of course my hip was mad. Mad or not, with vacation beckoning, this needed to be combatted immediately. I went hellbent for a fix: I backed off the exercise and went to the acupuncturist who stuck me full of needles. Three times. I noted no change in the first week and decided to step up my attack. (I know, my patience is not so great when I'm injured.) First I lined up my primary care doctor. She gave me a referral to a chiropractor and suggested Prednisone or 2400mg of Ibuprofen daily. I started my daily overdose on Ibuprofen that evening, wondering at what point my stomach would simply disintegrate, and made an appointment with the chiropractor. This, I knew would be the fix! Snap, crackle, pop - fixed! I was very excited.

The chiropractor, a blond 6'3" Tarzan with California looks adjusted my neck. Ahhhh! I felt two inches taller already. Onto the next adjustment and I had the snap, crackle, pop part correct. However, when I looked up, the scoreboard read: Tarzan: 1 - Rib: 0. The only word I could think of starts with SH and ends with IT. So much for surfing in two weeks, I thought.

Tarzan, horrified but composed, gave me his cell number and insisted I call with an update in the morning and come back two days later. I did. Suing, suggested by many, gives you really bad Karma and wouldn't fix the rib anyway, so I never gave that much thought.

Now as intent as I was to fix me up for vacation, he pulled out all stops, including a torturing lower body massage by his wife. If you are looking for a nice, relaxing massage - this is not the place for you. If, however your hip flexor, IT band and SI joint get hung up and feel like guitar strings, take a deep breath and sign up. A combination of electrodes, ice, ultrasound and especially the torturing massage will quickly remind you of why you booked the appointment. It hurts like hell but I'm pretty sure they'll have the hip sorted before I leave, and my friends in Nicaragua said they'd just tape me up if I needed it...

Looks like I'll be surfing...