Well, I’m back to Dr. Backcracker again. I had been having a lot of pain in my hip – that’s a new place to have pain, and it was really bugging me because it hurts both when I stand and when I sit. Of course, I have to sit down on my job, and I have to sit to drive down here. But then, yesterday, when I was in the shower with the bird, I really did myself in.

It’s not the bird’s fault. Kendi is very well behaved in the shower. Parrots like to get wet, and the humid atmosphere of the shower is like the tropical part of Africa from which her ancestors come. So she perches up on the shower curtain until I get finished washing my hair, then climbs down the towel onto my arm and lets the water bouncing off of my shoulders wet her wings. She even stretches out her neck and sticks her head a little bit into the spray, though not for long. She seems to have stopped molting, but when she was in the middle of her molt she really wanted to hang out in the shower and once took a bath in her water dish. I think that the warm water softens the sheaths that prickly new feathers come in, and I know her feathers feel softer after a shower.

When we get done, I set her on the counter on her own towel where she shakes off her tail feathers and then we play a short game of “peek-a-bird” (the same as you do “peek-a-boo with a little kid, only, of course, with a bird) She goes back to her perch and has a nice preen while I dry my hair.

But, ever since Sunday, my back has been getting worse and worse. I didn’t sleep at all on Monday night, just tossed and turned, lay on the floor, lay on the sofa, lay on the bed in the spare bedroom, and listened to the dog snore. Tuesday morning, in the shower, I turned to try to give the bird better access to the falling water, lost my footing, grabbed the shower curtain liner, in which I promptly became entangled. I caught myself with my left hand and held the bird up with my right. She flapped a little and gave me a funny look.

Pain shot down my right leg like somebody jammed a red hot iron down into my toes. I unwound myself from the shower curtain liner, put the bird down on her towel and crawled out to the kitchen to get an ice pack. Kendi didn’t seem to miss the peek-a-bird routine. She was highly intrigued by her human suddenly crawling around on all fours like the dog. The dog himself looked pretty stunned to see me crawling out of the bathroom, and, of course he came over to sniff me. While that was going on, I worked out a plan to get the ice out of the freezer. That actually worked, and Winston happily chased and chomped the cubes that landed on the floor.

After awhile I was able to get to my feet, get Kendi back into her cage, and lay down on the sofa with the ice pack on my right hip. It occurred to me that I probably wasn’t going to make it to work, so I called out sick. Thank God that I haven’t really had that many problems this year and had the sick time to use.

I located some clothes, stuck headband in my hair, and lay on the ice pack a little more. After awhile nothing hurt any more because everything was numb, so I decided to go up to the grocery store to get some soda. I only got half way there before the hot poker needle nerve pain started up again in earnest, making it very difficult to operate the gas pedal. I sighed and pulled into the nearest parking lot, near the vets office. I noticed that something new had gone in next to the vets. It was Dr. Backcracker’s office. And there was his phone number, emblazoned across the sign.

Okay. I know a sign, and a Sign, when I see one. I took out my cell phone and called.

“Oh, yes, I remember you, Tea. Can you come in today?” the receptionist said. She’s a nice person.

“Sure, I can.”

“How soon can you come in?”

“Well, I seem to be in your parking lot” I said.

“What are you doing out there? Just come on in, we’ll get you all fixed up.”

She has such a positive attitude. Everybody remembered me. “Where’ve you been? What’re you doing? What brings you in here?”

“Well, I was giving my parrot a shower….”

Wow. Turns out that’s a real a conversation stopper. So I explained the whole concept of parrots as rain forest animals while various staff members wrangled with my insurance company over the telephone, checking back in with the parts of the explanation they had missed.

The next thing I knew, I was in traction. Talk about having your ass in a sling! First they put something like a little table under my knees so that my lower legs were completely elevated as I lay flat on my back. Then the therapist put a harness on my lower body and winched up my hips. It certainly didn’t look very dignified, and I’m pretty sure my mother told me to never lay around in public with my legs like that, but the immediate relief of the pressure on my hip and the corresponding relief from the burning nerve pain were heavenly.

Then the whole contraption collapsed, and my rear end hit the therapy bed with a dull thud. “Oh, my God, I am SO Sorry”

“No problem. Have you seen my chart? It’s not like you’re going to make anything worse!”

They winched me up again, more securely this time and I saw Dr. Backcracker. His young associate was about to take on my case until she saw my chart, then she went off to deal with some slightly more straightforward heel pain. I explained about how much trouble I was having in a seated position, and explained how far I had to drive to work. “You’ll have to come back in first thing tomorrow, but I believe we can get you back behind the wheel for work in the afternoon.” He said. And he did.

Now everybody there wants to meet the bird. I wonder if they’ll let me do traction with her perched up on the harness?