emBRACEable me...

You may be wondering, what the heck is in that photo? Well, it's what has been snugly adorning my neck for the last several days: my lovely neck brace. :-))

I was instructed to buy the brace almost a decade ago for the pinched nerve in my neck. Apparently, wearing it helps decompress where the spinal discs are pinching the nerve. I remember at the time, the doctor told me that the progression of home therapy was the brace, a chin strap and weights on the end of my bed, and then inversion, like the Teeter Inversion Hang-Ups.

I'm of two opinions about my neck brace. On the one hand, it does provide some decompression and relief, but I have learned through trial and error that I need to wear the thing 8 hours to get 8 hours of relief. Any less wear and the relief time shortens. You can imagine how old that can get on a daily basis, so I only use it when I'm in unbearable pain or pain with accompanying arm and finger numbness like I'd had recently.

And now that all this time has passed, my problems have worsened to where the second step of the therapy is useless. A Teeter is definitely in my near future, but meanwhile, the neck brace is going to be worn until it quits producing any relief.



My neck problems really couldn't have come at a better time weather-wise. Since I last blogged, we had 2-3 days of rain. Pretty dreary-looking. Had it continued to be all sunny and springy, I'd have been even more unhappy.



Then we had a cold front (cool front for ya'll up North). The days were cool, but the nights were in the 40's which is cold for here. Hubs had just finished lecturing me about not running Reggie's heater, so I made it a point to tell him the heater was back on, bud, and don't mess with it. Every night Reggie runs into his house as soon as the plug is connected, and stays there all night long, so I know he needs the warmth. Hubs is so heartless sometimes. Me, I turn it on the minute it hits 59 or colder. Hubs would let it get into the 40's before plugging it in. I'm hoping he comes back as a dog whose owner is just like him in this regard, hehe. Then he will see. ;-)



We did manage to have some good food, though. Here is Hubs posing so enthusiastically (not) with his major award from work, a new smoker pit. Every so often, if you have contributed something safety-wise, they give you a web link and tell you to choose a gift. This is what Hubs chose back around Christmas.



Here's my plate: pulled pork, potato salad and broccoli. It was awesomely delish. Eating it with the neck brace on: not so fun, but I managed. ;-)