The painting continues...It's been more scraping recently. 85 year-old house = 4 layers of wallpaper. Yuck! It's taken a week to get to the point of caulking, which I will finish tonight, along with skimming the surface with all-purpose compound to even things out. Tomorrow I'll do a once-over with some sand paper, and then...primer! The real fun will start Friday with two coats on the trim (good date-night activity), and conclude on Saturday with the easy, fun stuff. This is my life. The carpet goes in Tuesday, but I won't do any of that.
Fortunately I'm keeping slim thanks to my vigorous painting schedule and eating more vegetarian than usual. Today I even got a psuedo-workout in. I scheduled a free consultation with Dr. Kingston in North Logan, who practices the Pettibon method of spinal correction. Stacy and I went to a seminar last night (free meal at the Iron Gate Grill), and were fairly impressed, enough for me to decide to learn more in person and get a quote. I biked out there (in the rain) to the office, about 3 miles each way, and fought a nasty headwind on the way there. I was quite winded. The receptionist was a bit surprised that I biked, as I was quite wet and miserable-looking. "Who can afford to drive these days?" I asked. What she doesn't know is that runners thrive on misery, so I was quite happy to have the chance to suffer in a non-paint related setting. I gave the Dr. Kingston my three-page injury background, starting with getting rear-ended at 50mph back in 2000 (something that I never thought about before now). Amusingly, Kingston knew who Sasha was, so I guess Sasha made an impression on Dr. Jex. Kingston could tell that I was messed up just from watching me sit there, but then again, I could tell that as well, so that's not too impressive. He took some x-rays of my neck and spine and figured out the angles. A normal neck has an arc angle of 45 degree, although anything above 28 degrees is okay. My neck is 18 degrees. It would be even less, but my shoulders are compensating. My lower spine also has no arc, as it is compensating for my neck as well. And the lowest vertebrae doesn't have enough space, meaning I probably have a bulging disc. Hence the SI joint and lower back pain. It is all 100% fixable according to Dr. Kingston, using the glorious Pettibon method. He says that Pettibon has a 98% success rate in his office and that it is a permanent solution. I asked him if patients need to come back for "maintenance", like typical chiropractic. "No." was the reply. Once people are done, they never need to see him again. His personal story was that he used to practice "traditional" chiropractic when he started out, but was frustrated that patients had to keep coming back again and again. He could make people feel better for awhile, but it was just putting on a patch. Now I can see why he puts on seminars, dinners, and goes to expos, because he can't retain repeat patients like a normal chiropractor. Once someone is fixed, they are truly fixed and don't need him anymore. I must say that I like that idea. I've been a big fan of chiropractic for a while, but am coming to realize that it doesn't fix anything, it just allows the muscles to relax for awhile. The question is, though, whether I want to spend $2200 on this. This amount would cover all of the office visits (36 of them), the equipment, and the follow-up x-rays for 6 months. If I get better faster than that, I get the prorated amount of money back, and if it takes longer, the doctor eats it and keeps treating me. Alternatively, a round of physical therapy at the hospital would probably cost me around $1200-$1500 out of pocket. But there is no way physical therapy will correct my neck or lower spine. I've been there, done that. So I'll have to think about it and see. Until then, more painting.
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