Day: June 10, 2022

“Back” in business..so to speak.

What happened: in June-July 2020, I started to get glute pain upon walking…it became more and more severe until even 2 miles was enough to bring it on. Weight lifting: it did not appear during workouts, though I grew to understand that certain exercise (heavy deadlifts, arching while bench pressing, arching while shoulder pressing) brought on the referred pain AFTER the fact…not during.

I also had foot tingles/leg tingles at night; sometimes extensive.

As you can see, I am quite bent forward when I walk; I think it was my body’s attempt to take pressure off.

I sought out PT for it in summer of 2021…fall of 2021..even walking from my car to a game was painful. I tried resting from all walking, this stretch, that stretch.

Well, I’ve had this spondylolisthesis for many years; it was first noticed in ..yes, 1978 (summer). I have a pars defect (fracture of the pars; aka spondylolysis) which lead to the L5 vertebra slipping forward, ahead of S1 (top of your tailbone). I’ve had episodes for some time, most lately in 2006, 2011, 2013, 2016 and this time, conservative treatment could not quite clear it up.

Update: I just looked at my records online; in addition to my spondylolisthesis (due to pars defect) I have lumbar spinal stenosis (due to the nerve root impingement) which causes neurogenic claudication. (heaviness and pain in the leg due to the nerve root being impinged

My S1 is tilted forward and the L5 slides down, even when standing straight (shear force).

This leads to a lack of space for my L5 nerve root, hence foot tingles, sometimes shin tingles, and glute pain on my left side at about .8-1.5 miles of walking (warmed up); .4-.6 miles of walking (no warm up).

PT has helped and strengthening my glutes and core has helped. But not enough.

So, after meeting with the non-surgery back doctor, he referred me to a surgeon.

The surgeon explained that the definitive treatment would be spinal fusion, but that while the operation would probably relieve the symptoms, it would probably lead to different problems down the road and start me on the road to more surgery.

So…epidural steroidal injections have a decent success rate and possibly stop the cycle of irritation.

I get mine a week from today.

January 6 commission ..

I put a couple of highlights. And I have some thoughts:

  1. The riot: Yes, it was an attempt, albeit one doomed to fail, to overturn a legal election that they did not like.
  2. The violence was sickening.
  3. The desecration of our Capitol was outrageous. I cannot imagine old school Republicans behaving that way, but for some reason, decency is long gone.

Nevertheless, while *some* Republicans will be sickened by it, I doubt it will move the election needle that much, if at all. Ultimately, the Republicans who ARE sickened by this (and some are) will vote for their tax cuts, business deregulation and judges….and they will point out that some (not all) Democrats downplayed some of the riots with the BLM protests (though claims were sometimes exaggerated or conflated with other events) along with other points of hypocrisy.

Yes, i know this is different; here we had Trump and other elected officials trying to overturn a legal election; that is very dangerous and outrageous. And yes, that is the difference between this event and the (evil) attempt to assassinate a Supreme Court justice. (he had Secret Service protection).

So, yes, members of Congress are doing the right thing; and yes, Rep. Cheney will probably lose her seat over this.

And here we are. Basically, some Republicans tried to overturn an election, which incited violence (which they enabled, encouraged or at least condoned) but people yell so darned much all of the time that few are treating this with the seriousness that this deserves. Much of the country sees this as just more partisan politics.

As far as getting others to pay attention: this is where people who rarely say much need to speak up.

The yellers and those who talk too much (e. g. me) will be tuned out. Democrats will convince no one. Principled Republicans, who we will disagree on many issues, will have to be the ones speaking up

Workout and baseball again

Baseball: nice 6-3 win vs. Quad Cities last night; fun game, and there were a couple of towering homeruns, the longer one (OVER the left field picnic area) was by the Bandits.

Though the attendance might look sparse, it was not the horror story of last year. There is decent attendance in the less expensive areas.

Workout: most of my PT, swim, then a walk. And it tired me out!

The walk itself was fine …the first mile (14:25) came past very quickly…was dong really well up to 1.5 and then..descent into what ended up as moderate pain. Still, it went better than I thought it would.

The swim: 600 of 50 side, 50 either back or breast.

then 400 of 25 drill (kick), 25 swim, focusing on the high elbow. For some reason, the side kick is awful. Back position?

200 in 3:33 (chased Bob)

50 back

200 in 3:30 (darn it!)

50 back

100 pull, 50 free (tired), 50 back, 100 pull…wiped out.

Weight: 202.4 afterward. THEN some stretching and a walk.

I almost skipped the walk; it is sad that 1800 yards of swimming tires me out like this.

Glute/back: feeling it this afternoon. I think I tweaked a glute muscle slightly, but yeah, lot of it is the nerve root.