Sciatica is a Pain in the Ass

Well, more a pain in the lower back and right leg. I have self-diagnosed myself with sciatica. Remember, I worked a half-second in healthcare... ok healthcare marketing, but my diagnosis is still legit! All it took was some online research and Dad's genealogical confirmation. Unfortunately, I'm dealing with sciatica at age 29. Dad was in his late thirties before he started having chronic lower back pain.

According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, sciatica "refers to pain, weakness, numbness, or tingling in the leg. It is caused by injury to or pressure on the sciatic nerve. Sciatica is a symptom of another medical problem, not a medical condition on its own... Sciatica occurs when there is pressure or damage to the sciatic nerve. This nerve starts in the lower spine and runs down the back of each leg. This nerve controls the muscles of the back of the knee and lower leg and provides sensation to the back of the thigh, part of the lower leg, and the sole of the foot."

I have all that and a bag of chips.

I'm fairly sure a lower back injury four years ago is haunting me. Back then, I had muscle spasms after a session of running stairs near Golden Gardens in Seattle. I was out for a couple days and the pain was excruciating. This time, the culprit is a crappy indoor soccer field in Tacoma where I played early morning indoor soccer most of the winter wearing crappy shoes. The pain wasn't terrible, but enough to make me stop playing indoor soccer.

But I can't stop playing soccer altogether. After a 10-year break, I am really enjoying getting back into the sport and competing in the men's league with a bunch of guys out of high school and college. My game is still good and rather excellent considering the length of hiatus and youth of my teammates and competitors. These youngsters can run fast, but they don't have the fundamentals or vision of the game. Advantage: Paolo.

Hence, I continue to aggrevate my back week after week on those Sunday soccer games. A common recommendation for minimizing sciatica is to stay active. It's not something that you sit and wait to heal. I just don't know if running balls out (not literally) for 90 minutes is exactly aligned with that advice.

My mind is WAY ahead of my body when it comes to playing soccer week after week. Because I am conscious of this, I make sure to warm-up and stretch before the game and cool down and stretch after the game. I have probably never been so limber, but the recovery period for my back and legs gets longer and longer.

I'm limping around on Tuesday after a big game Sunday. I notice it the most when I get out of the car at work after the 75-minute drive out to Ashford. I have to "shake out" my right leg to get it going when I climb out of the Jeep. It all gets back to the sciatica and the way I sit in certain positions. I've gotten into a good habit (I think) of standing at the coffee bar when I work around Tacoma, so I don't get stuck in a bad sitting posture.

Lately, the sciatica symptoms have improved. I'm not limping or getting shooting pains down my leg as often. Sometimes my sleep positions aggravate my back, but there's not much I can do about that.

The sciatica isn't going away, but neither is my ambition to stay active through it and minimize its impact. I'm aiming and training for a Rainier summit this summer, which is a 9,000-foot elevation gain and something like 17 miles roundtrip carrying a 20-40 lb. backpack (depending on the leg of the climb) over two days. Many people have more physical disadvantages or ailments than I do. I figure I might as well take advantage of the otherwise good health I have, while I have it!

Sciatica symptoms will be annoying, but they're more motivating to stay healthy than slow down.

Kitchen Cabinet Refinishing Project: Complete

There's still work to be done in the kitchen -- countertops, sink, tile backsplash -- but I'm calling the cabinets done. It's been a long time coming, from yellow to mellow, but I think this red mahogany stain will be the last shade of color these cabinets wear so long as I own them. The kitchen cabinet refinishing project is complete!

I started the project late last summer getting the top cabinets stripped, sanded, stained and finished, and I completed the lower cabinets last week to surprise Amanda while she was in Indiana. I also took the liberty of picking a new paint color for the walls that I like so much I'm painting the guest bathroom and mudroom the same color. I'd say this leg of the project took me about 25 hours over the course of a week. With all the new appliances we've collected and what's coming with the countertops and finish work, this will be a completely new kitchen by the time we're done!

It wasn't all pretty. I had to turn the guest bathroom into a work room because it was a little too cold to work outside, and our kitchen was transplanted to the dining room for a couple days.

Here are a couple more before and after photos:

Every time I took a break, Fabrizio would look at me like "You know Amanda is going to be home soon!"

Here's the new paint color for the walls.

Of course, I got new hardware.

And flowers in the planter jar wall display to welcome Amanda home. Done!

Photos: Dog Bath

"Mercy?"

"OK, you win."

"Brr."

"It's like I'm waterproof."

"Where's my doggy conditioner?"

"Ahh."

"Shake!"

"Shake!"

"Shake!"

"Clean dogs go crazy!"

"Ahh!"

"!!!"

"Still crazy!"

"OK, now I'm winded."

"Do I look clean enough for you yet?"

"How about now?"

"Thanks for the help, Amanda."

The Gold Birthday - All Gold Everything

It's my gold birthday! How do you like my gold birthday suit?

Amanda told me about this solar eclipse-like, once-in-a-lifetime "gold birthday" when you turn the same age as your birthdate. In other words, I turned 29 on March 29th!

What feels different this year? Frankly, I'm feeling a little more brittle than before. I've had some serious lower back problems, lingering shoulder problems and digestion issues that don't pair well with breakfast. I've focused more on diet and exercise to counteract that which is slowly fading away: youth.

And I must sound like an old man because despite these physical offsets, I feel as good as ever spiritually, emotionally, intellectually and creatively. I'm incredibly thankful for my wife and 2.0 pets. I've got an amazing job and lifestyle. As Matt Wood would say, "I'm living the dream."

I have one more year to squeeze out of my 20s, so I'm going to make the most of that. And I'm going out just as loud as I came in. (Thanks to Soulja Boy for the theme music, also got to bump my favorite birthday song by Vitamin D.)

Guest Post: Car Shopping the Chaffee Way

Guest post by Courtney Chaffee and part of an ongoing series, "True Life: I married Scott Chaffee" While I am happy that Paolo and Amanda could share this car-buying phase of life with Scott and me, I am a little jealous how it all played out. Not because they got the Jeep Compass and I didn’t, and not because they got a new car before me. But because they got to do it together. Let me share the “Chaffee” way of car shopping...

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far, away (near Browns Point) lived a completely car-crazed man named Scott and his unbelievably patient wife, Courtney. Scott was famous for not being able to hold onto a car for more than three years. In his first 10 years of driving, he had bought and sold seven cars. Scott was something of an idiot savant when it came to cars. He could recall mpg, horsepower and changes of body styles without hesitating, but if you ask him to recall special dates (birthdays, anniversaries), names of people he met 20 seconds ago, or any one of the Ten Commandments (note his 12 years of Catholic school), he would be lost.

We were creeping up on four years of owning two Xterras (his and hers, naturally), and I knew my good luck streak could not go on forever.

We both knew that selling his car was not an option. Just a year ago we had to put a couple grand into his Xterra for something I still cannot pronounce the name of. If I had to guess, I think it was something about the “framulator.” When Scott told me what he had spent, I informed him that he just bought himself a coffin and if he ever tried to sell it, I could guarantee he would need it. So, my car had a bulls-eye on its back windshield.

On the rainy day that Paolo wrote of, I remember the three of them going out to look at the Compass. Paolo is right, when Scott loves a car, he will make sure someone buys it. Of course, when the Three Musketeers left to test drive the Jeep, it was Scott that I was expecting to buy it. Paolo was just doing what Paolo does best: amusing Scott. If I remember correctly, Paolo said, “We will be back soon, Scott just won’t shut up about the car so I have to go look at it to get him off my back.” This is a little game we all play with Scott. Of course, Amanda was the one that suffered that day.

What a curve ball life threw at me when Scott not only came home without purchasing the car, but Paolo was the one that had to have it. Paolo is right about many things. It is an awesome car. It looks great, drives great and there was no way I was going to drive the same car as him. With Paolo buying “the best Jeep Compass in the country,” one of Scott’s itches had been scratched. Fortunately for the Mottolas, their car-shopping journey had come to an end. Unfortunately, mine was just beginning.

One day while leaving for work Scott, we shared a cryptic conversation:

Me: “Bye buddy, I’m leaving for my three-day work trip.” Scott: “Oh! I need you to drive my car to work.” Me: “Why would I need to drive your car?” Scott: “Ummm... ummmm... I think you’re really pretty. Bye!”

If any of you have ever planned for a disaster, this is the first sign -- an unsolicited compliment. I knew Scott had big plans to sell my car when I was on a layover.

Scott’s plan came to fruition in short time: He sold my car for more than twice the trade in value, Paolo was driving around a “sick” new car, and I had received a bonus at work. The end was near.

We came home from skiing one Sunday afternoon and Scott entertained me by talking about how AMAZING the new Subaru Imprezas are. I told him, “Fine, I will go down and just look at it, so I know which car you are talking about.” (This was my attempt at amusing Scott.)

Well, looking led to test driving, test driving led to inventory research, and the lack of inventory led to ordering a brand new car online. The whole event was a blur of questions, ignored feedback and decisions. I just sat there and tried to stay calm through it all.

As we were looking at options he asked, “Do you like the navigation and remote rear view mirror, or do you like the fog lights?”

I gave him the same look that he gets when he wants to have deep conversation about if Fast 5 was better than the original The Fast and the Furious -- half annoyed, half confused.

This is Scott when he started looking at brochures and couldn’t stop smiling.

This is Scott after he ordered the WRX wing to be put on the back.

I wish Scott displayed the same excited, blissful look on his face during car shopping on our wedding day, but I cannot compete with heated seats, AWD and 35 mpg. All I got was a gaunt look of terror for that hour at the alter.

This may surprise some of you, but Scott and I never “officially” graduated from premarital counseling class. On the final day, our certificate was “misplaced” and unable to be found. I don’t want to blame Scott, but he didn’t help.

I remember the counselor asked me, “How would you feel if Scott did not include you in a very important decision like purchasing a car?“ I replied, “Oh, you mean again? Because he has done that three times already.”

I wonder what he would think about Scott selling my car when I was out of the state before excluding me from purchasing a new one?

We are still waiting for that certificate of premarital counseling completion. I’m sure we’ll get the new Impreza in the mail first.