Spring and the Wu Wei Moon
Tuesday gratefuls: MRI results. Hannah. Mountain View Pain Clinic. Luna Home Physical Therapy. Luke and Leo. Shadow. Toys for aggressive chewers. Our backyard. The Yellow Duck. Early Mountain mornings. Magenta Skies. Snow forecast. Amy coming today. Leash training.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow’s Gift
Week Kavannah: Wu Wei
One brief shining: Luke’s website, Soulscape, includes a well-done Bird figure from Dungeons and Dragons, brown pants and green top to symbolize a Tree, his own versions of the Hebrew letters from age 10, several of his newer Hebrew letters in his distinctive white on black style, and a discursus on the letter lamed, a tour de force.
Dog journal: Over the course of our lives together Kate and I loved and cared for 17 Dogs. As you can imagine, I’ve seen many instances of Dog behaviors. None like the one I saw yesterday from Shadow.
Luke and Leo came over. Leo would make 5 of Shadow. He’s a very gentle and kind animal, slower at his advanced age of 12 than when I first met him.
After he and Shadow sniffed all the relevant parts of each other, they went outside to play. Shadow zooming in the back as she loves to do; Leo plowing through the Snow with his head. A lot of play bows, some chasing each other through the Lodgepoles.
When Leo had had enough, he wanted to go back inside, Luke thought for the toys. Leo remembers where the toys are when he comes over. As Luke thought, Leo went straight for the toy bucket. Shadow got a toy, too, and they played separately for a while. Then, Leo got tired of it all and laid down. Shadow continued to play for a bit.
Then she did it. Shadow picked up the toy Tiger in her mouth, went over and dropped it in front of Leo as if giving him a gift. I know it’s easy to over interpret Dog behavior, to project our assumptions about their behavior onto them. But I swear Shadow gave him the toy to play with.
One of the sweetest Dog moments I’ve witnessed.
Organ recital: MRI results are in. Oh, boy. My lumbar spine, from L2 to L5 is arthritic and the discs herniated. Lots of nerve pinching up and down. No wonder I’ve got pain.
The herniation I imagine is from the Andover gardening years. Stoop labor. A lot of heavy lifting.
Possible treatments include opiods. No. Physical therapy. Yes. Cane. Maybe. Steriod injections. Probably not. Nerve ablation. Maybe.
All symptomatic. No fixing this back. Problem is I’d need multiple sessions with needles into my spine for either the steroid injections or the nerve ablations. With the steroids, if they help, every three months at least. With the nerve ablations possible six month intervals.
Even so. Needles into my spine? That scares me from a pain perspective and from a That’s My Spine perspective. If it were one and done, sure. But episodically for the rest of my life?
Gonna go with more physical therapy right now. Ponder the needles.