A Pain In The Neck

Well, I knew this was coming... The resurgence of the mighty (heavy) LP has taken it's toll on me. I've had a gradual build up of pain in the left side of my neck that travels a very...gnarly path to my left shoulder blade. I'm sure that over-compensating for my lower back problems helped bring this on. It came to a grand conclusion Wednesday while I was in he middle of checking in our biggest Italian import haul yet - 3570 lbs.! I could barely move my head.

I stopped and told the warehouse manager I couldn’t go on. I then went to some other higher-ups and they told me that they didn’t want me lifting anything anyway, and that I needed to delegate and manage. Yuck. Finally, I went to the owner's wife and suddenly and quite unexpectedly, got emotional telling her that I just can’t do it anymore. She thought about who we could get to help out and I mentioned that I want to go to the doctor first, get a diagnosis, and move on from there.

Yesterday I went to the doctor and after a pretty thorough examination, he told me that he didn’t think it was anything too serious, but no lifting for about a month. He liked the idea of delegating the physical stuff to other folks. Double yuck. As hard as it is, I really love that part of the job. I enjoy working fast and efficiently. I love knowing the details and quirks of each vendor’s shipments. I can see a problem, a shortage, and non-scanning barcode a mile away. I do it so well!

Something kind of weird happened at the doctor’s, though. As I was sitting up on the examination table, with my shirt off (sorry!), he gently patted my beer-belly and said that I needed to walk 45 minutes a day. It will help stress, my neck, and shrink down the gut. Gross! Give me all the prostate exams you want, doc, but hands off the beer-belly!

Below is the wonderful Richmond-San Rafael Bridge that I drive over on my commute to work. I love the fog, I love my commute. It’s just all the other crap that is a pain in the ass..oops! Neck!