A Poke And A Soak

I had to be at  Virtuous Health Center in Show Low at 12:30 yesterday for a pair of bilateral lumbar transformational injections. These are minimally invasive procedures using X-ray guidance to inject anti-inflammatory steroids into the nerve root openings on both sides of the spine. They are used for alleviating chronic lower back pain and sciatica by reducing inflammation. They can also be the first step toward RF ablation, which actually severs the nerve that is sending the pain signals to your body.

I have had both the injections and the ablations done in the past, with mixed results. I went into the first ablation appointment in Florida walking on two canes because the pain was so intense. I could not believe the difference it made. A couple of days later I was out on my kayak and was pain free for three years. Then the nerve regenerated, and it was time to start over again. I had the same procedures done in Alabama the next time around, and they were totally ineffective. Yesterday, my pain level was about a five on a scale of one to ten before the procedure, and within an hour afterwards, the pain was gone. The injections aren’t the most pleasant thing to endure in the world, but they’re quick and not that bad, and the trade-off in the relief they give is well worth it. As I write this about midnight, I’m still pain-free.

After we left the Pain Center, we stopped at Lowe’s to pick up some things, then went to the post office to mail off a book order. Back at home, I ran soaker hoses out to some trees in the backyard. Much of the country has been in the middle of a drought for a long time, and when pine trees dry out they become prime targets for the very destructive bark beetle. I didn’t have enough hose to reach all of the trees, so I will reposition them tomorrow afternoon to get to the ones I missed.

Once I had the soaker hoses laid out and running, I tried out our new Corona 3-tine disc cultivator in the backyard where we want to plant clover. The ground is so hard that I needed to use a pick to dig out three invasive elm saplings the other day, so I wasn’t sure how well the lightweight long-handled cultivator would do. I was surprised that it did a pretty decent job without pushing too hard on it. I only need to rough up the soil a quarter inch or so to plant the clover. But that’s going to have to wait a few days because we’ve got some temperatures down or near freezing coming in the next few nights.

Be sure to enter our latest Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an autographed copy Randy Attwood’s Crazy About You. Service brats grow up on military bases. Asylum brats grow up on the grounds of mental hospitals where their parents work. Both juveniles and adults will be riveted by the story of high school asylum brat Brad’s week in 1964 that tests his sanity and grows him up faster than he ever wished

He thinks he’s in love with the schizophrenic teen, Suzanne, who has to be tied up to keep from picking her palms until they bleed. Only Brad believes her story that she is trying to cleanse her palms of her father’s semen. And only Brad believes he has the plan to save her when her father wants her released back into his care. But then the brutal murder of a townswoman and the missing status of her daughter, a nurse at the mental hospital, rivets the town’s attention. The lit fuses hit the dynamite on prom night when a group of patients in the building for the criminally insane hold guards hostage and Alex Krout, squealing in his cell, waits for his chance to run amok.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 30 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

Did you know that you can find all of my books and sign up for my free author’s newsletter on my website at www.nickrussellbooks.com?

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – Anything you think is wrong with your body at the age of 35, you will be nostalgic for at the age of 45. By the time you’re in your 70s, you’ll look back at it and think those were the good old days.