pusher

i hurt my neck last week by sleeping "wrong" on a plane to denver. i had a couple of very bad days and took a lot of advil and did a bunch of stretching and it mostly chilled itself out. yea! then i came home and slept "wrong" on a plane and played a rugby game. why? well, because i'm firmly convinced that people think i'm brighter than i really am and i occasionally have to prove that point. ok, i might be lying about that last part. but have you ever fantasized about how much better volleyball would be if they'd allow tackling? if you have, then you probably understand why i can't give up rugby in any permanent sense.

so i spent an hour or so saturday putting my head and neck into tight corners that really weren't conducive to recuperating the erstwhile injury. meaning: i re-injured it. and then i came home and cried about it until rose offered to go get me a muscle relaxer. sometimes, i wonder if "muscle relaxer" isn't her personal secret code for "pillow over your face" but whatever. i injured myself a while back so i had a couple of pills left over from those prescriptions and she dug one out and gave it to me. and it worked! my muscles relaxed and i drifted off to sleep after muttering some particularly choice nonsense that popped into my head in the twilight of consciousness. this is how rose gets her revenge. she records these silly mutterings in her brain and reminds me of them the next morning after i've had some coffee. i am always properly contrite after being reminded how odd the dark corners of my nigh-sleeping brain are.

i awoke in the middle of the night and i needed to get up and go to the bathroom. you would be AMAZED at how heavy muscle relaxers make you. i was three times my normal bodyweight as i moved across the room. or, at the very least, it was three times harder to move myself across the room.

the next day, i chewed down advil all day long and kept my tender knee on ice and stretched a lot and my neck was JUST FINE. that was great! alas, all the scrapes and bruises that i'd been able to ignore the night before due to the adrenaline of having played a great game of rugby started catching up with me. further, this was when i started to notice that every muscle i owned (except my uterus, really) was in pain. ouch.

sunday night we're settling in to bed and i start crying about how sore i am and rose growls: "do you want a muscle relaxer?!?!" (emphasis mine) i think she was about ready to kill me. instead, i asked for just a painkiller and another round of anti-inflammatories.

monday night... lather, rinse, repeat. this time, when rose suggested i take a muscle relaxer i suggested that she bring ME a painkiller but get a muscle relaxer for herself. it won't shut me up, but it'll certainly make me easier to tolerate.