In Bed with Bob

Bob is not the name of my husband. It is the name of an unpleasant visitor who forces me to stay in bed with my legs up on a foam cube cut to my specifications. Bob is the name of my back when it hurts; Bob is the name of lumbar back pain.

Once upon a time, not too long after I had finished a half-marathon and was in pretty good shape, Bob entered my life uninvited. My then-neighbor Amy named him after Bob the Builder (context now unknown), and the name stuck. The first time he visited, Bob stayed for several months and accompanied me to various doctors--from university hospital genius to total quack, and everything in between--; he demanded Vicodine, oxycodone, and morphine; put me in the hospital; and left only after I rolled him into a physical rehabilitation clinic in a wheel chair. At the clinic, somewhere in the middle of rural nowhere, I learned to relax without the use of pain medication but through acupuncture and meditation, and to heal with the help of electric muscle stimulation, afore-mentioned cube, and specific insoles designed for my feet. No surgery needed: Bob left on his own. The threat of Bob's return has curbed my ambition to run a full marathon, but except for rare (and short) visits, Bob is gone.

Now that he is here again I try not to freak out or fear the worst. I try to be zen about Bob. Ice packs, hot baths, walks, time on the cube. As long as I'm not sitting or bending or standing, coughing or sneezing or brushing my hair, Bob is under control. Bob doesn't like me knitting, and Bob surely does not want me to wash and block a new sweater. The Hubs is a trooper, as always, and today he even washed my Olympic sweater. (I know! Totally too sweet. Proudly I put the Ravelympics medal on the blog.) He cooks and brings me tea and helps me into my walking shoes (I can't put on socks on my own, nevermind tie shoe laces).

The confinement to bed has given me some unexpected time to upload and sort photos from our Florida vacation, and here's a mosaic of my favorite photos:



I was over the moon to see palm trees, and I took plenty of photos of those. The kissing couple? My parents. The felt flowers? For my birthday. The astronaut? Cape Carnaveral. I loved to walk at the beach, and just thinking of it makes Bob want to go back to Florida. Maybe he should go there right now and leave me in peace... :|