L4 and L5 and Sciatica

I thought it was Lyme Disease that had gone to my hip and leg. So did the doctors. An MRI shows that it is a disc protusion. I can’t figure out if this is a bummer or what. It’s good to know that I don’t have permanent damage left over from the Lyme of the summer months. But I don’t like the sound of disc protusion. Maybe it’s just what it is, and I should move on from there.

Next week the doctor will lay out the next steps. I am hoping that Physical Therapy will do it. Sometimes I think I am doing better, certainly much better than early summer. If this progress continues, I could be on my way to a full healing (though I wonder about there being a continued weakness in that area).

I’ve Decided to Become a Night Person

My whole life I’ve risen early – not by choice but by habit. From ages 12 to 19 I delivered early morning papers, so I didn’t get to do that sleeping in thing almost all teens do. And I didn’t get to do that “staying out very late thing” since the “early morning thing” was just too few turns around the clock before I had to be up and going by 4:45 am.

I have loved early morning. But now I am wondering what it’s like to stay up late and read, write, watch or whatever. I think I’ll give it a try. Besides, I think I might like waking up after the world has already woken up and gotten things ready for me.

So now I am doing things to keep me awake until later at night, something I wouldn’t be able to do if I wasn’t busy. Sure enough, there is a whole world out there that goes on far after I am in bed. Hello, night time. And to the sun I say, do your thing, get the earth warmed up, and get the people out of bed who need to be up to get things ready for me.

Gone, Baby, Gone

Mystic River redux.  This is a great flick. I need to see it again.

Casey Affleck (Ben’s brother) is the protagonist, an understated, low-key, baby-faced, soft-voiced PI. It’s great to have a main character who isn’t so cool you actually want to be him but interesting enough to watch and appreciate.

This is one of those movies that just when you think it’s over it ain’t….and then you put on your seat buckle for another round…and then you think it’s over, but it ain’t…and this time you hope your seat buckle still works. I love movies like this.

 The movie revolves around the question of whether or not it is best to do the right thing, though someone who is innocent might suffer terribly for it, or the thing that seems to common sense to bring the most good. I think we face this all the time. I do as a pastor. Affleck makes the decision for the right thing, the lawful thing, and then finds that he is alone.

Of course, if you’re from Boston it’s great to see the sites of the film, even if some places aren’t quite so pretty  – lower income city neighborhoods, people who grow up believing that life has three career options (firefighter, policeman or criminal), kids stuck in places that kill the soul, and adults who can’t get past their own issues.

Mystic River beats Gone, Baby, Gone – but not by much. The former has so much character development that you can’t get away from it. But the performance by Affleck holds its own. And the audience is riveted enough you won’t have to ask anyone to shhhh!!