MRI Part II, Christmas Eve Coffee, and Leftover Snapshots

from Wikipedia: on the left is all you guys and on the right is me

24 December 2010

An MRI image from Wikipedia. Mine isn't as bad as this.

About a week ago I saw my MRI pictures. Way cool! But I have a herniated disc at L5-S1.

I've been going to a sports medicine doctor and a physical therapist for a couple of weeks now. They twist, pull, pop, and bend, and now I've gained back the half inch in height that I'd apparently lost when I first arrived at their office.

The therapist looked at my MRI results and said he was amazed at my mobility. "Most people who come in here with this as bad as yours can't even walk." Such is the Dumb Jock Double Standard: My physical fitness aids greatly in healing from wounds I've inflicted upon myself in my attempts to be physically fit.

I've been doing physical therapy twice a day at home. The therapist keeps adding to the routine; it's taking about 40 minutes these days. It's working. Today I put on my shoes without gritting my teeth. Twice I touched my toes without bending my legs. I can sleep on my back again.

My piriformis muscle, which has been in spasm due to the inflammation around the disc, and which was pressing on my sciatic nerve, seems to be calming down. I can almost feel my pinkie toe.

Throughout all of this I've been able to ride my road bike. There's no way I'm ready for mountain biking (I'm not even allowed to do sit-ups or vertical leg presses yet), but as long as it's above freezing, I can take Miss Piggy into the Sourlands (the granny gear is there just in case).

Today, Christmas Eve, Mighty Mike, Cheryl, and I ventured out a little after noon for a trip to Lambertville. We had Rojos in mind. Mike digs their espresso. I wanted to get another bag of beans to bring to the lab; my mission to prove to the Italian post-doc that good coffee can be had in New Jersey seems to be working.

It was barely above freezing, with a good 15 mph breeze out of the northwest. My aerodynamics were somewhat hindered by the felt antlers that I'd affixed to my helmet with rubber bands. In my jacket pocket I had a set for Cheryl.

"Give me your helmet," I said. She did, without asking what I was up to.

Richie, whom we used to ride with years ago, and who is the area's only cobbler, had called Cheryl earlier in the day. Out of wrapping paper and stuck in the store, he asked her to bring him some.

So there we were, the two of us with antlered helmets (mine with annoying little bells) and Mike with a roll of wrapping paper shoved down the back of his jacket, courier style. A car honked at us on Franklin Corner. Cheryl and I both said, "We're going to get a lot of that."

Richie looked up and said, "Do you know how silly you look?" More than normal, I suppose he meant. I took the opportunity to use a rubber band to fix my left antler, which had been broken by the wind.

Between the stop at the store and the wind holding us back, it was 2:00 by the time we got to the top of Rocktown Road. With Mike's 4:00 curfew looming, he said, "Let's go straight in."

We don't go down Rocktown's hill very often. By the time we reached the bottom, I had armsicles. Cheryl complained of boobsicles. My fingers were freezing, but no matter: we were just blocks away from Rojo's.

Which was closed.

Mike, who had peeled off across from Baker's Treat to scope out a mirror in the store across the street, met us halfway down Union and did the u-turn. We headed back to Church, where a pedestrian complimented us on our antlers.

Baker's Treat was closed.

"Who knew it would be so hard to get coffee in Lambertville on Christmas Eve?" I mused.

Cheryl wasn't worried. If LTC didn't pan out, there was always Starbucks across the bridge, or Dunkin' Donuts across from Starbucks.

LTC, our old hangout before Rojo's happened, was open. Inside we got our java and more compliments on our headgear. One customer even asked me about wind resistance. On our way out, she asked, "You came this far just for coffee?"

I smiled. "We go a lot farther than this for coffee."

Cheryl decided that, in order to get home as quickly as possible, we should take Franklin Road. I haven't even looked at that hill, let alone climbed it, in many years. I still had leftover Hill Fear.

One glance at that wall of asphalt and I said to Cheryl, "I hate you." Mike laughed. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "It's short," he said.

Cheryl said, "You shot up that thing like it wasn't there." (Thank you, Miss Piggy!)

I said, "I felt it." I need to remember to stretch at the break until I'm healed.

The funny thing is, my leg never bothers me after a ride. In fact, I'm looser and pain-free for many hours, even the next day. I was worried that my doctor was going to ground me for the rest of the year, but he didn't. He said I could do whatever doesn't hurt. My physical therapist wasn't surprised when I told him that, last Sunday, after an hour on my trainer at home, I could lie on my back and finally straighten my leg.

Meanwhile, back on the road, the temperature was falling as the 3:00 winter sun cast a deep yellow light. We made it back to Cheryl's by 4:00, with enough time and light left for Mighty Mike to take this picture:

*****

I found a stash of photos I never posted.

Here's a pair from my second trip to Baker's Treat at the end of November:


Chris had taken a bite of his dog by the time I got to it.

Rocktown Road on our way home:


The tracks under the bridge on Delaware Avenue in Pennington:



Here is a bunch of pictures of Mount Airy that I took on Joe Bucci's Halloween ride on October 30. Joe was giving a tour of the graveyard so I had a lot of time to play around.






This is a picture I took on October 23 at the Brooklyn Farmer's Market. We went with Kevin and Rebecca. I was three days into the worst of my sciatica at that point. My left foot was full of pins and needles every time I stepped on it. I had plenty of naproxen on hand, though, and I gave some of it to Rebecca when she sprained her ankle on our way to the car in Jersey City. None of this has anything to do with the picture below.


This is a cell phone photo of an albino squirrel that I saw in the parking lot outside of the gym in Hamilton.


Here's Cherry Grove Organic Farm's flower bed towards the end of the growing season:


Going back even further in time, here are some cell phone pictures from my last days as a commuter in Philadelphia.

This is Reading Terminal Market. Although I'd worked at Penn for 14 years, I'd never bothered to hop the trolley and go to the market after work. One week before my last day, I finally did it.

Market East station has elaborate tile work by the tracks:



Now, some pictures from late September, as the reality of leaving Penn for good was finally hitting me.

This is Spruce Street at 36th. I was standing outside of the lab, waiting to meet a friend for lunch. The building on the left is the Quad, the oldest dormitory on campus. The tower in the distance is still the Quad. To the distant right is Superblock, the three high-rise dormitory towers. On the right is graduate housing.

Compare the above with an evening shot of one of Princeton's dorms in the rain. The thing is, no matter the weather nor time of day, this walkway is always empty.


Finally, here's dear old Trenton train station on an early September morning. I'd write that I'm no longer out and about at sunrise, but there's the matter of my 7 a.m. physical therapy appointments. The rate I'm healing, though, I should be back in bed in no time.