I think you could use a fair bit of that paragraph right there!

Agreed!

Windsparrow, good luck! It is a good thing you're doing.

My plan for today was to just rest up and try to feel better, but I have actually gotten a lot done in terms e-mails and phone calls. My cholesterol was a little higher than normal on my blood work yesterday, which is probably because most of the food I have actually been able to eat are not necessarily the healthiest foods, but hopefully as I'm having better days I can start eating healthier as well.

Cute story alert! I was talking to H yesterday and apparently G (the little boy I used to babysit for) really wants me to have a boy because he wants a brother. Isn't that just too adorable that he is thinking of ltc in terms of a sibling?

Andi, I used to do the work you do. I lasted 2.5 years and burned out. If you ever wonder if anyone really understands what you do and appreciates you, be assured that I do! You're a rare and admirable person.

I'm leaping over 350 posts that I hope to come back to at some point, for this FYI that maybe, maybe would be helpful to someone else. So I hurt my hip last June, by moving a quarter ton of rock from Point A to Point B 40 feet away in the morning, crawling around under my house checking the foundation and moving visquene up in the afternoon, and then jumping in my car the next morning and driving about 400-500 miles to Ashland, OR, in my car that doesn't have cruise control. I was crippled by the time I got there. It didn't ruin my vacation in Oregon, but it persisted. For the last ::mumble:: months, there was a clicking of bones in my hip when I walked, and I couldn't stand on my right leg alone to do any yoga poses or exercise routines.

So in addition to yoga and gentle exercise, doing this 5-6 days per week, I added swimming, and the key ingredient. Seeing an osteopath who came highly recommended by my sister, who factured some vertabrae in a car accident. She'd told me ages ago that this O Doc helped her more than anyone else. Well, I think she's helping me more than anything else, although of course the yoga and swimming are helping it all. It's sort of like chiro, except gentler. There's massaging of bones going on, and always some head stuff. Two of my right ribs were out of place, my hip was out of place. It took awhile, but!! As of the last session with her, I can do standing tree poses in yoga now, and walk up stairs without my R hip hurting at every step and the bones in my hip don't click with every step any more. It's amazing. All of it together of course makes it hard to pinpoint one, but I think the osteo stuff is the key, and others are supportive.

Here's what might be helpful to others? The osteopathy thing has an element about moving/freeing up the bones in the head. Apparently they are not completely fused, they still have some motility. She ends each session with some kind of osteo voodoo massage on the bones of my head and it's the oddest thing.... it feels like something is happening, that there is a release or something going on. It doesn't hurt, it kind of feels good, if strange. I asked her if anyone ever sees her for migraines, and she said yes, and that it can be helpful. So fyi for what it's worth.

You should go, WS. I agree with erika, they probably have no idea what you really do. And you are so articulate about what you do and why it's important.

Looking up local osteopaths now. Thanks, Javacat.

Early Derby hat.

Oooh, I thought I was the only one who can hear the joints in my skull shifting. It feels good after, like when your ears pop. Most interesting! If treatment has applications for headaches maybe I should be more interested, especially after all the various blows and bangs to the head.

Today I spent hours barging around the yard getting ready for spring and for garbage day. I had a brief glimpse of three hummingbirds together and for sure one was Little Buzz. One of the others was a chick and I'm not sure about the third. If that was the family, that was the first time I've seen the babies together since their first morning out of the nest when they were so comfortable perching on the clothesline.

Hummingbird families have a schizophrenic love-hate relationship that reeks of teenagers (says the cranky old person). The young ones sit around and peep, hoping for a feeding. Little Buzz alternates between feedings and the kind of aggression that starts with sitting on the young'un's head, easy to do with those hovering skills. She is not above dive bombing about fifty times in a row. That was hard to see because I despise relentless harassment, and also baby hunched down clinging to a branch and displaying the freeze and submit response.

I wouldn't have believed that a hummingbird can raise the ruff of feathers all around its head until it looks like a shiny fuchsia lion's mane. Looked very serious indeed.

Fortunately they still get along well enough to do a feeding in front of me and make noise all day long: Chip chip chip-chip! Chip chip chip-chip! Peeep! Peeep! Peeeeep... so all is well in the garden today.

I'm far more interested in the horse. Thoroughbred. Nice looking horse. Would be prettier without the blaze IMHO but that's beside the point.

Katie, yeah, one of the things on the intake questionnaire was had I ever hit my head. I've had several knocks, some of them severe enough that I probably should've seen a doc and taken it easy for a few days, although I never did. That reminds me, I need to call an attorney for some lady who slipped and fell at the college pool.... I'm on record for falling there because it knocked me out and they called the campus police to come get me and take me to a doctor, which I declined. Whoever is suing the college, both attorneys keep calling me.