It hit me on Saturday, I think - but Sunday morning was when it really knocked me for a loop.


                                                          


My Levator Scapularis is really zapping me today.

Something else that's associated with that muscle - somethign that runs down between my shoulder blatds, which I've always thought was part of the levator - is also dinging me pretty heavily.

Having something go wrong in my neck is an unfunny thing. What's strange is how having my back or neck go out like this colors my perception of everything - I see everything through the message pain that my back or neck is sending to me.

I would go home and just lay down, but that won't make this go away; I asked Ethel to zap it with the big Homedics vibrator thingy, but she was in a rebellious mood. Now that I'm here in town, I've got a service commitment for this afternoon that I can't duck out of. So I'm gonna have to go tend to that, as well.

And at least these activities provide me with some distraction - for a while, I can make myself busy, and I'm not aware of the pain. When I stop working (for example) and stand up and try to walk somewhere, then Church Is Out.

I'm also aware that I'm a weenie - for instance, since the back of my brain now knows (because of the lower back issue a few weeks ago) that, if I get into enough pain, then I will take a pain pill, it (the back of my brain) may now be trying to generate enough pain to make me take a pain pill (if the back of my brain sounds like a selfish tyrant - then, yes, that's right. It is :)

I would take some time off and just let it rest - but I can't rest, since I have a half marathon in just under eight weeks. That, come to think of it, is a real problem; I'm quite sure that any enjoyment that I might get out of running that half marathon (BTW, it's been a long, long time since I've gotten any enjoyment out of a half marathon :) will be more than offset by the pain that I'm going through right now. So why in the world would I keep such an appointment? Why would I keep training, when the training hurts, and the end result doesn't feel particularly good either?

As Pete Hogwallop would say, "That don't make no sense".

I reckon that what's really going on here is this; my neck hurts, yes. And the half marathon won't be any fun, no.

But should I stop training for the halfathon, then the awareness that I'm being a lazy bum would hurt worse than my neck hurts, and it wouldn't go away. I know that eventually my neck will be better, but if I stop training, then the pain of doing that will hurt much longer than the pain of continuing to train.

So I'll just keep going.

Although it "don't make no sense".