The Tennis Ball Surprise

With the fusions and degenerations in my spine, keeping in the least amount of pain and discomfort is  something that affects things I do every day.  I have to do certain motions certain ways, sleep in certain positions, don't do some things that others would find easy to do and do extra things to keep a relative balance in my spine and the surrounding muscles.

Invariably though, things get out of balance from time to time.  Sometimes, I can get things back on track in a few days while other times it could take months to get back to my, "normal".  Muscles can be mean, but I don't want to spend all my life on anti-inflammatories because less medication (or ideally no medication) is better where possible.

Much of the time I go to the chiropractor's office—they help quite a lot—and they're great at giving me advice on what things I can do or not do to try and help the situation such as, "don't cross your arms over your body if you can help it, hand the seat belt to your right hand from your left hand."   Many of the things they've told me over the years have been fairly easy to do or avoid.

I'm plagued with inflamed, balled up and angry muscles.   The other day the chiropractor said, "get a tennis ball and work that muscle out."   Hold on.  What?   Why is it after nine years at the chiropractor, no one has bothered mentioning the tennis ball trick to me?  This sounded easy, it sounded delightful because I could imagine leaning into the tennis ball against the wall or on the floor and working the muscle out.   I told him thanks and  I would.

I went home, found a tennis ball in my children's toys and lay down on the floor to work out a particularly knotty muscle.  I was amazed.  That tennis ball was dynamite.  I was on the floor yelling into the kitchen at my husband and Uncle Jonathan the amazing medical benefits of a simple tennis ball.  I don't think they cared.  I'm not even sure they heard.   I didn't really care though, I was too busy with the tennis ball.

I have a tennis ball in my suit case and it's been here in case I needed it this week on vacation.   I wish I knew about the tennis ball trick for my last vacation because I was in some severe pain by the end of the trip.

How much is this little tennis ball going to save me in pain and medical costs?   I don't know, but I hope a lot.

The Big Boy Update:  My son found a very dead beetle today.  It was desiccated and as soon as he picked it up the legs fell off.   I told him we needed to go inside and have a shower after swimming in the lagoon and he said, "I just gotta help him hatch."  He proceeded to peel the exoskeleton off the beetle until there was nothing left.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  This morning something happened that's never happened before.  My daughter woke up and because we're on vacation and she's sleeping on the floor in the same room we're in, she walked over to the side of the bed and said, "hug".  I picked her up and hugged her.  She lay down on the bed and fell back asleep for the next hour.   Our children have never slept with us so it was an interesting experience.

Kona Ice Count:  Over a week at my brother- and sister-in-law's house with their Kona Ice franchise truck in the drive way and I'm a Kona Ice addict.  I can't even tell you the total number of Kona's I've eaten, but it's sure to have put a dent in their profit margin for the month.  I'm going to have to go on some sort of detox when I get home next week called, "exercise and work off the Kona gut"