Tag Archives: cervical traction

Titleless/Mindless

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There’s a new store that opened today in my neighborhood. It’s kind of funny how much people seem to enjoy checking out something new, like they’re going to find something exciting or different. I’m not sure why that is. It’s a chain store so to me that makes it all the more funny, you can drive about two miles down the road and find the identical store. Yet that doesn’t stop folks from pulling up in droves. I guess we like new, and we are a nosey bunch. I mean if we weren’t would there ever be a followup accident after the first because of gawking or rubbernecking. We just like to get a good look at things. Curiosity is a fine thing to have plenty of I guess, but noseyness is one of my greatest pet peeves. I ran into a woman yesterday that I haven’t seen in probably fifteen years. I would have never recognized her and I’m still not sure I remember any details of working with her but she fired off three rather personal questions within 30 seconds of saying hello. I just never dream of asking people anything other than how are you doing? I care how you are doing, I don’t care what you are doing or who you are doing it with unless you’d like to tell me or any anything else for that matter, otherwise it’s NONE of my business. I once stayed at a retreat house in Canada that had retreatants from all over the world. The one rule at meal time was you were not permitted to ask any questions of each other. I loved the place. It’s amazing what you can talk about when you can’t ask questions. You were free to volunteer any information you’d like, but no questions. The point was you came there to reflect and be alone, you only had to offer what you felt like offering. I’m not sure how my rambles led me here today but on this cold and first taste of winter kind of day I’m sitting here almost finished with traction and I think I have a case of the grumps cause my skin still feels itchy.

The music is coming to an end so that’s my cue that time’s up, it took me three tries to get strapped in today, my unfocused thoughts even led me to not being able to easily set up something as routine as traction. Thanks for helping me pass the time once again.

Tune worthy, swoon worthy

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Strapped in listening to The Glenn Miller Orchestra play Moonlight Serenade. If this song doesn’t soothe you not sure what will.

Here goes, confessions of a girl strapped in traction……….. love Glenn Miller, love Jimmy Stewart, who by the way played Glenn Miller in the movie, The Glenn Miller Story, and love John Krasinski, this generation’s tall and lanky dude. Love is maybe too strong a word, but maybe not.

Ok, confession time over and so is the song, but if you don’t know what I’m talking about click out of here and do yourself a favor, go to YouTube, search Moonlight Serenade, close your eyes and listen…..hurry, go now.

Travel Traction

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I was out-of-town for a couple of days recently and in the past I’ve always taken my traction gizmo with me. Its been hung on some pretty nice doors in Santa Monica, The Biltmore Inn, Sea Island, DC, it’s willing to go just as long as it’s packed like a Faberge egg. For whatever reason this time I thought I’d be ok to leave it at home, I didn’t take it to Massachusetts and that wasn’t the best idea. I had so much numbness in my arms and hands it was nuts. It’s weird because traction on the road is usually a nice break in the traction routine and even though it’s just as much of an inconvenience as ever you tell yourself life could be worse. When I sit in traction at home I don’t hear the ocean or have access to room service, it gives me a new door to stare at, maybe sometimes they are extra jazzy and have slates for my entertainment. What was I thinking?! The traction missed out on fall in New England!

So the moral of this story is, have traction will travel, always, never again will it be left behind!

Animal Planet

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You’ve heard of pet therapy, well as I sit here in traction I think it might be nice to have something fluffy to hold onto, perhaps a furry little kitten or a cuddly puppy. For me though I actually think that’s a dream or maybe a nightmare. When we moved out of my childhood home I found a dog collar in the garage, let’s just say, I don’t ever remember having a dog. The days of having a Rover around the house were part of an unspeakable pet past.

A friend once asked me to keep an eye on her cat while she was out-of-town, to stop in each day and put out some food. I asked her if I’d have to bathe the kitty and she responded with a sigh and then said, “you weren’t kidding when you said you knew NOTHING about pets!” Why would I lie about such a thing?

My pet stories are all tragic and true. I had a canary named Simon, after the 10th time my Mom had asked me to clean out his cage she placed him on the back porch and told me that’s where I’d find him until his home was clean. So hours later I stroll my 12-year-old self out there and pick up his cage to say hello and out he flies from the bottom of his living quarters that I suddenly realized was now missing its’ tray. As he flew to the woods behind our house I screamed and my Mom came running. She consoled me with the reassuring words that we lived close to an interstate and before I knew it he’d be far south and living in sunny Florida. (You gotta love the stuff that Mothers come up with on the fly) Although it was trickier for her to smooth over the next year when the wolf dog next door tried to make Simon II into the blue plate special, Simon the sequel headed to birdie heaven within 24 hours.

I had so many fish swim to aquatic heaven I lost count, even a stray cat we named Tigger gave up on us. But the story that lives forever in my SPCA hit list life is my little turtle. He was about ten days old, didn’t even have a name yet, we returned home and couldn’t find him in his terrarium. Wasn’t hard to immediately notice turtle was not in his glass home and nowhere to be found. When one of my brothers offered to help find him I desperately accepted. Within minutes the sound of the crunch shook the room…….yep, big bro accidentally squished turtle under his Chuck Taylors into a little pile of oozing turtle guts and simultaneously burned the desire for further pets forever from my heart.

My Mom quickly announced her term as pet grandmother was over. She was retiring the role and I believe still recovering from the dog incident from ten years earlier. Apparently an elderly neighbor had said our dog “snapped” at him and my brothers were told their doggie was going to a “beautiful farm to run free”…when my eldest brother figured it out sometime later he never let them forget Buck’s euthanasia.

It’s kind of like God sent our family a memo that said, “Look, but please don’t touch.” So as I sit here today I’m thinking about my first Simon who flew south, picturing his little yellow self flying in and out of his time share in Boca Rotan. Soaring high over an ocean filled with all my guppies and goldfish. Not being a “pet person” is one thing but to be a danger to them is an unsettling other matter. I think once you realize you aren’t good at pet care there’s no coming back. Don’t get me wrong I’m the first girl to appreciate nature, but it has to be from a safe distance for all involved. So instead of trying pet therapy I’ll just squeeze this fluffy pillow as my neck hangs in traction and know by doing so I’m actually saving a Spot or Sprinkles life.

Cool sip in, laser beam it out…..in honor of Elissa

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Yep, I forgot to do this. When my niece was a child she had a dance teacher that used to tell her students to take “a cool sip in and laser beam it out.” I thought it was one of the funniest things I’d ever heard and have shared it often with others. Nobody quite ever knows what it means but it always creates a laugh. I even suggested it at a work meeting once when things were getting out of hand. Ok everybody, lets take a cool sip in and laser beam it out for a second…..and yes, I got some crazy looks but it achieved it’s purpose of cutting the tension and getting some folks to “cool it” as my Mom used to say.

So I’ve forgotten to do this lately, to just take a moment, hence my melt down on my last post. I’m doing better today, maybe it’s narcotics or maybe it’s when I saw a bus of children with severe disabilities getting unloaded to go into PT that I was reminded how I have nothing, nothing at all to be complaining about.

So, when in doubt I’m taking a cool sip in and laser beaming it out and just trying to be grateful for all that I do have that works and dealing with stuff that doesn’t.

The definition of traction

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So which do you prefer? “The action of drawing a body, vehicle, train or the like, along a surface, as a road, track, railroad or waterway” or how about, “the act of drawing or pulling” but let’s not leave out “the deliberate and prolonged pulling of a muscle, organ, or the like, as by weights, to correct dislocation, relieve pressure, etc.”

BINGO, I think we have a winner!

It made me feel better to read the definition and cringe a little. When you read something that has the power to make you wince you figure it must be creepy for real and yeah, it is. I’m moaning and complaining, I’ve been trying not to do either but have I mentioned lately I’M SO SICK AND TIRED OF TRACTION and if I don’t do it I can’t feel my hands and I’m sick of that too!

Ok, moving on.

“It’s a good thing”

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Nope, I haven’t been sniffing the Martha Stewart glue stick, nothing like that, rather I almost fell asleep in traction today! This is a first and I think “a good thing.” It means I was relaxed and yes, comfortable enough and obviously tired enough to fall asleep. I caught myself just as my head was about to fall off my neck, rather the sling around my head caught me and suddenly I’m back sitting as I should be, but it was a thrill while it lasted. Not to whine, but I can’t describe the discomfort I have felt while sitting here most of the time and to know that I actually was ok enough with sitting here today that I could fall asleep, this is HUGE.

Yeah, I think I’m kind of exhausted with my sleep issues to allow it to more easily happen but I’m focusing on the being comfortable enough to let it happen part.

Gotta find some nugget of good here cause I’ve been losing my psych of late. I mean if it wasn’t for this crazy blog I’d be really struggling with motivation. It’s just hard to find a way to make your self sit in traction when your damaged spinal column hates you for it. If you know of a way to make that a happy place, please share. But for today I’m hanging and almost falling asleep and taking it a day at a time.

Is that a sink hole?

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I think I might have a sink hole in my back yard. If I put on my glasses I’d be able to give you details about that, let’s just say I need to put my glasses on more often. I’ve been blessed my entire life with excellent vision, but lately my eyes have been a little blurry and it’s amazing if you put those glasses on you can see so nicely. But I’m not going to wear my glasses in traction, that’s like wearing your glasses on a ride at an amusement park, it’s just asking for trouble. So I don’t put them on when I get up because I’m not accustomed to wearing them and then I do traction and the next thing I know I’m looking out the back window and I think I have a growing sink hole and I can’t find my glasses! This could be the most exciting thing to happen in my backyard EVER.

As for keeping up with my glasses I’m tempted to get one of those strings but I knew a person once who wore one around their neck and they were a combination of kind of mean and a little too pretentious for my taste and I’m concerned about cross contamination. Plus the thought of putting anything around my neck EXCEPT a scarf with a built-in heating pad really isn’t appealing. Visualize the Pillsbury Dough Boy wearing a scarf, something that would match his gentle doughy neck, that would work perfectly for me. When it comes to what I want to touch my neck I’m “light and fluffy” all the way. The oxygen it seems is officially being restricted since I’ve now compared part of my body to a crescent roll and it feels like a fairly accurate description.

Ok, this is where my head is today, as for my glasses, on second thought maybe they’re in the sink hole.
I’ll keep you posted.

20 Minutes

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It can be the worst 20 minutes or just 20 minutes. Every time I sit here I have a choice, I can make it more miserable than it sometimes feels or I can use my mind to psych myself up to push thru it. Today is hard, everything hurts more, my back, my neck, even my ear. I can’t seem to find a good rhythm to move the time. I usually have a routine, I initially sit here and just adjust to it, then I either pray or listen to music or read or just sit and think, hence……Thoughts in Traction……when I listen to music, I remember how long each song will last so I know how much time is left, some days the time passes faster, but today, right now 3:37 ticks away before my eyes and I want to scream but at the end I’ll hit replay and just hang on a bit longer.

Right now I’m reminded how much this sucks and how I wonder sometimes if I can keep doing traction. Then I realize I’m fooling myself to think I have a choice, yes, technically I have a choice but the results would be worse than the pain and discomfort of doing traction. I’m just feeling sorry for myself today, I just need to be able to hate this in this moment, it gives me a sense of control I really don’t have. I wish I never had to do this again but come two days from now, I’ll be back here again.

Password, smashword

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Ok, so I’m not off to such a great start…confession, I lost, misplaced, forgot, fill in the blank…….I couldn’t sign back on to my own blog because I couldn’t remember my password! Wow, I’m glad I posted that for all the world to read. Yikes, so far I’m coming off really well.

Hey, I’ve got some news, I can move from a DAILY cervical traction schedule to THREE times a week, yipee…I think I’ll go for a MWF schedule. Always liked those classes in college best, those Tuesday/Thursday classes just “hung” on a bit too long, gosh, who knew there were so many bad traction jokes…..ok, so I’m signing off today…….in the words of Jim Halpert, “I’m boring myself just talking about it.”