I just notice that there is a dictate option on word. Doesn’t seem to work very well. It seems far is in Chicago . I have a question did not miss Chicago. So much for that experiment. I’m going to type.
I want to PT yesterday. That’s a new thing to talk about for a while. I have some questions for those who know more about it than me. There doesn’t seem to be enough communication between me and the PT. This was my second session and I had a different therapist. As they don’t take reservations I can’t expect to get the same one. I don’t know if things were different based on my progress or just because the therapist was different. It starts with electrical stimulation. The first time the therapist started it so low I could barely feel it and slowly raised it. She reached a point and asked me if that was OK. I said yes. I assumed she meant does it hurt? This time he started it at a far higher level and pushed it way up and asked me if that was right. I didn’t know how to answer. How am I supposed to know the right level? The way the first PT did it I thought she put it to what she felt was the right level and was just double checking with me that was too much for me. This time it was not in the same ballpark so that wasn’t what was going on. It got to the point of being very uncomfortable. I had to fight with my prejudices; the one that says, “no pain no gain.” We are conditioned to think that cures are unpleasant. I might not know the theory of how stim works but I know to not believe aphorisms. I decided this was too unpleasant to sit through for 15 minutes so I told him to lower it. The first time the stim was pleasant, this time it wasn’t. I don’t want to get insufficient treatment because I’m being wimpy, but I don’t want to do damage to myself out of fear of looking like a wimp.
The PT is for my frozen shoulder. I was surprised how much greater the range of movement was this time compared to the last. Was that the result of one session? The therapist is the one that moves the arm when checking the range of motion so whatever the cause it isn’t in my head.
The frozen left shoulder was just one of my joint problems. I had pain in my left elbow, right shoulder, right hip, right ankle, and my back. I got a cortisone shot in the left shoulder which seems to have worked. It is no longer sore to the touch. As for the rest people suggested a bevy of cures, acupuncture, chiropractor, massage, and “natural remedies.” I opted for Lorem tempus, giving it time. It worked. Even my left elbow, where it all began, is greatly improved. The body has multiple ways of healing itself. If left to themselves and kept safe from further damage many conditions get better with no outside help. I rested and tried to not put strain on the joints and they improved. Now let’s imagine I had tried one of those treatments. I’d be tempted to say that whatever it was helped. That’s a fallacy. Just because B follows A doesn’t mean that A caused B. People feel uncomfortable with that. They want a reason they can see for everything. This is what allows quackery to survive. It’s why people let doctors put leeches on them. Sometimes after leeching a patient will feel better, just as sometimes after doing nothing, a patient will feel l better. But getting leeched is dramatic and fits out notions that cures should be unpleasant.
The only way to figure out a cure works is by doing studies that show that people with the treatment do better than those that don’t get it. Everything else is leeching.
After therapy I went shopping and did something stupid. I bought a lot of food that I had to carry home. That’s the opposite of protecting the damaged joints. Now my back is stiff. It’s not the severe pain I was in, just stiffness, but I’ll be careful.
I never got a call back from the rheumatologist with the names of GI docs for me to see. I can’t get an appointment at Montefiore until February. I might walk over there today to see if that helps. Then to find an ophthalmologist to take care of my cataracts.
I have a busy week ahead of me. Tonight I see Richard Thompson. This will be the second time curtesy of WFUV. I’m Jim’s date. Tomorrow is Red Molly, Friday I have options, not sure where I’ll end up, Saturday the Hudson West Folk Festival, Sunday Deni Bonet.
Do you have your tickets for the Hudson West Fest? There’s a great lineup:
Harpeth Rising
Sunny War
Blue Yonder
Blackie Farrell
Stephane Wrembel trio
Evie Ladin & Keith Terry
Kirsten Maxwell
Vicki Kristina Barcelona
Scott Wolfson and Other Heroes
Freedy Johnston
You’ll recognize some of those names from Wise Madness.
Then on Tuesday there’s John Platt’s On Your Radar. John is ill so Richard Cuccaro and I are going to fill in as hosts. I want to do John proud and you being there will help. The guests are.
Ryanhood
The LYNNes (Lynn Miles and Lynne Hanson)
The Belle of the Fall
The shows have been selling out so buy your tickets now; Ticketfly.
Wise Madness 