This is my crazy little story about pain.

Last summer I hurt my already unreliable knee and as the summer went on my lower back was ALWAYS causing me grief and at times so was my right shoulder.

To sum it up, I was always in pain and I could knock the rough edges off with Advil, but like I said I was always in pain.

When I wrote or when I was at work I could ignore it to a point but by the end of the day I was exhausted.

Sure I could have made a Doctor’s appointment and three months later I could have gotten in and found out what was wrong, but looking back at it I wasn’t thinking as clearly as I normally do.

And then a few weeks ago I had to clean up poop that a homeless person left on my loading dock- in fact my dock had been used to shit and do drugs on for the entire weekend so it was a big old hazmat situation out there.

In the process of ‘respecting’ that homeless people can live, shit and do drugs wherever they want-I stepped in a pile of poop.

Lucky for me my snow boots were still at my desk so I threw out my shoes and wore my snow boots for the day.

During lunch I went on line and saw these shoes that my friend, who is a dog walker/dog whisperer for a living uses.  One of her clients is a podiatrist and when he found out how many miles a day she walks he recommended some footwear that she should really be using.

She told me that she couldn’t believe how much better her feet and back felt- so I thought, ” Why not by these super expensive shoes? I’ll treat myself. I deserve it after stepping in human poop and having to throw away my shoes and wear big clunky snow boots all day long.

I ordered them and in the section below where they recommend MORE stuff for you to buy I saw a DVD for exercises to strengthen your knees and lower back due to arthritis and – god- old age.

Well it it was only 10.00 so I ordered it too.

So now just a few weeks after using the correct footwear and doing light exercises ( I’m increasing the reps daily ) I can actually get up from a chair like a normal person, I don’t limp like a Pirate on a bender and I’m not in pain every single minute of every single day.

So what have I been doing?

Goofing off mostly. I’m not exhausted so I don’t fall asleep as early as I used to. I feel like I’ve been given extra hours in the day.

So here’s the weird thing. Sometimes I’ll be watching tv, or writing or playing with my dog and I’ll stop and do this brain scan and ask my pain ” hey are you still there or what? ”

No answer so far. But I’m a little afraid that one day I’ll hear that little voice say, ” Yep. Here I am.  Hey. Go on say you missed me. I know you did. ”

RDP Saturday: VANISH