Rib Meat

Even though I slacked on my own autobiography for a while, I didn't neglect my health. I put in 3 - 5 days a week at the gym. I watched what I ate. And I avoided junk food / fast food with a passion. At some point, I hit 195lbs. First time since 2005. But that was due to 3 days without power (ie: Air Conditioning!) Three days of stress and terror. Three days helping other families recover in the wake of Katrina. Since then, I went up to 217. But now I've cut 22lbs, and I'm at (or below) 195lbs. Ten more to go. I'll be at my fighting weight. 185. A weight I haven't seen in more than a decade.

To help recover from some workouts, I visited April today. Hands like a pneumatic vice. Therapeutic massage, she calls it. Borders on torture. Not the least bit romantic or relaxing. But incredibly refreshing once it is all done. Except once. Near the beginning, she was dragging an elbow down the length of my spine, and she hit a land mine in my back. Lights went off behind my eyes and my legs wanted to twitch like an electrified frog. Whenever she would knead a certain knot, I'd all but pass out from the pain. Turns out that it wasn't a knot. It was a rib. My 8th. And it was "out of alignment." Dislocated rib meat. Probably slipped off while I was moving a fridge last weekend. Required a lot of directed breath, some forced relaxation, and a phenomenal amount of sharp edged pain. But I felt exponentially better after April wrangled it back in place. A weight lifted off of me.

But the odd thing was not knowing it was out of place until she caught it. How long would that have jabbed me if April hadn't found it?