I shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be writing about Diane without her permission – lord knows she fusses when I post a photo without her approval – but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to anyway.<\/p>\n
On our way way home from Kansas, I noticed Diane ejecting herself from the van in the very same manner Brian adopted during his one and only eighteen hour drive with me to Indiana. Flick the door open and fall out with palms and knees flat on the pavement. By the time Diane had arrived in Acton, her back wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just stiff, it hurt.<\/p>\n
Even though I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d subjected my lower L\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s to the American health care system in the mid-nineties, with eventual success, Diane assumed hovering to be the best medicine. The one man whose opinions I most trust, and whom I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d hoped would steer Diane to her doctor, affirmed her plan. I simply shook my head.<\/p>\n
Diane, like an Olstein acolyte, knew she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d eventually feel better -except she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t – instead she devolved. Picture those charts that chronicle man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gradual evolution from fish, to gorilla, to Lucy, to Neanderthal and finally to fully upright, only in reverse. Even with her inverted golf club for support, I figured she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d soon be looking up at her mother.<\/p>\n
Diane’s new posture flowed from her pain. It hurt her to turn, to get out of bed, to bend down, to walk, and even, or mostly, to sit. All of this seemed acceptable for weeks, until last Wednesday when she crawled out of bed, and struggled to use the toilet. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s funny how one word – bedpan – can focus a woman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attention.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, after Thursday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office visit, where her internist diagnosed her \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ligament strain\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (again, I shook my head), and offered a plethora of pills, she lurched to her first physical therapy appointment. With a fairly-firm new diagnosis of a slipped disc, Diane blissfully endured an hour of electrical stimulation, heat and massage. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be writing about Diane without her permission – lord knows she fusses when I post a photo without her approval – but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to anyway. On our way way home from Kansas, I noticed Diane ejecting herself … Continue reading