So I’ve got this hitch in my get-along. The kind that starts at your lower back and travels along your glute, down the back of your leg, behind your knees and to your ankles, exiting somewhere in the foot region. It starts as a minor tweak which then turns into a nagging ache and if left properly unattended as I have so expertly done the last 3 weeks, it escalates to a full on RAGING PAIN that nothing, not even the beloved one’s left-over T3s can eliminate.
Have you been paying attention, Dear Internet? We’re getting ready for a 30-hour road trip next week and there’s no WAY I can sit for that long with this issue without totally losing my mind or the one of someone very near & dear to me. So, after much moaning, groaning, belly-aching and complaining, not to mention a couple of really bad massages administered by the one whom I adore, complete with him kneading the back of my thigh with his knee pushing his full 238-lb weight into my leg, I broke down and called my regular massage therapist, the lovely and perfectly tanned & fit Keslie.
Despite her perfect All-Canadian Girl-Next-Door looks Keslie is a fantastic massage therapist. Even though I arrived for my appointment 10-minutes late, she carefully went over the full retinue of what ailed me. My self-diagnosis was sciatica (which interestingly on the island is pronounced SKY-at-IT-CA, not SIGH-At-ic-a), but I could tell by the look on her face she thought it might be the fact that I could stand to lose 40-lbs and get my ass to the gym on a more regular basis. But, as I said, she’s a sweet girl and so didn’t actually say this out loud. Instead she talked about stretching and “engaging my core” and IT-bands and other such ways I could reduce my current pain and avoid further episodes altogether in the future.
I spent the better part of an hour face down on the massage table while she dug into the most sensitive regions of my legs (that is anywhere above the ankle). Kneading, massaging, stretching my ligaments like they were salt-water taffy. Oh, let me tell you, it hurt so good. There were a couple of times I almost came up off the table and hit her square in the face she hurt me so bad. But it was all in the name of reducing my current level of pain, so I refrained from said swinging at one who was helping me.
At one point, I’m lying down with my face firmly planted into the little cradle at the top of the table and with my gluteus maximus partially revealed to she who was healing me, she quietly says “God your ass is tight.” People, it’s the first time ANYONE has ever said that about my ass. Given that’s where I’m genetically pre-dispositioned to carry my excess poundage, I’m pretty sure, she didn’t mean it in the “good” way.
