Wow

So you're probably expecting a final NaNo update, but instead, I'm going to talk about ribs and degenerate into a discussion on health. Feel free to skip it if spinal health isn't your thing. On Thanksgiving, I dislocated 3-5 ribs. The experience was...let's say...bracing. This isn't the first time its happened, but it's one of the worst, and I couldn't breathe when I lay down to go to sleep every night. Friday a friend's wife managed to pop the three worst ribs back into place, which allowed me some relief, but I still had a great deal of trouble sleeping. I went to the chiropractor on Monday, but that didn't take and so I went Wednesday again.

The offshoot is that I'm just starting to get something like real sleep again. The vertebrae that caused the initial problem, sending the muscles into spasm and pulling the ribs out of their positions, still keep pinching nerves. I don't know how long it will be before I'm completely back to where I was, but I'm working on it.

I made the observation during the worst parts, in a moment of despair and pessimism, that this always seems to happen when I'm on vacation. Then I started to wonder if that was something other than just confirmation bias, but something about taking a week off work that messed up my back. I think it came clear Monday after my chiropractor appointment. I went home and sat in my comfy chair and within 20 minutes my back clicked out again. I used the restroom, then when I came back, I didn't put the footrest up (my comfy chair is a recliner). An hour later I felt much better. Now, a year or two ago, I had the back of that chair rebuilt, better than new, with extra reinforcement for back support, so I'm pretty sure it isn't a matter of it just being old. I think it's just that any recliner, unless its a solid chair sculted to a spinal shape, requires your postural muscles to hold your back in position. A weekend of that isn't a big deal, but after five days, my back snapped out of place, unable to handle it.

So I think that's the key. I got the chiropractor to give me a set of excercises to strengthen those muscles. Hopefully they will be better before christmas. Either way, I'm going to spend Christmas break alternating between reclining and sitting up, so that those muscles don't have to work for very long at one run. I think that's a plan.

Oh, and I didn't finish NaNo.