dr_pretentious | Tyrannosaurus Arms

"This is my range of motion," I said, first to my excellent chiropractor who was willing to see me as a walk-in, then some hours later to the nurse who'd squeezed me in for an appointment, and then to the doctor. And I'd demonstrate the low circumscribed arc in which I can move my arms. It put me in mind of nothing so much as the tyrannosaurus rex figures in dioramas at the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum.

And if I try to move my arms anywhere outside that low circumscribed arc, lightning strikes my neck and shoots down to my fingertips. It's, ah, vexing. Now I know my efforts to stop swearing in front of the baby have really settled into deep habit.

The chiropractor said, "Oh, yeah, this kind of pinched nerve usually happens to people who spend a lot of time carrying babies. In a few sessions we'll have it mostly cleared up, and your son's almost walking on his own, so you'll be fine by his birthday."

The M.D. spent 45 minutes chasing a red herring, asking lots of questions that clearly indicated she thought I'd had a stroke. But she didn't want to admit she suspected a stroke until after she'd finally ruled it out. She sent me home with a prescription for a drug that's incompatible with nursing my son, and a prescription for an MRI in case my neck vertebrae are disintegrating. Whatever. Good thing for her I'm not a tyrannosaurus.

Thursday I have too many follow-up appointments, so it looks like I may not be registering voters that afternoon after all. Damn and blast. Instead, I'll be finding out what a cross-section of my spine looks like these days. And if still I feel then like I do today, I fully intend to be doped to the gills on percocet, which is maybe not the best condition in which to be importuning unregistered voters.

Meanwhile, all my thanks to