Pain Free

My right ankle has been killing me for over a month now. It started hurting when we were on our road trip, walking around all day in large cities. One night I noticed it was horribly swollen, which was appropriate for how much pain I felt. When I got back to Norway and showed Dr. Odd, he said it was from being over used and the only cure was to stay off my feet and keep it elevated. Well, that wasn’t going to happen, so I had to opt for plan B, whatever that was.

My friend Carol just had foot surgery and she told me about a miracle working chiropractor in Mt. Vernon that uses something called a “cold laser” to speed healing to injured muscles. It sounded like just the ticket, so I called today to schedule a time as I’ve been tired of hobbling around in pain everyday - plus it was making me crabby. I was able to get in to see him this afternoon and sure enough, the pain disappeared. But as it turns out, Dr. Odd was wrong in his diagnosis. I think that’s the first time he’s been wrong – he was able to diagnose Kory’s compression fracture over the telephone, and one other time he pulled off an amazing diagnosis which elevated him to saint-like status in my book.

Kory had gone in for a general check-up in Seattle about ten years ago. The doctor noticed a strange lump on his collar bone. He wouldn’t say what he thought it was (bone cancer) but we were sent to three specialists and he had several tests. After nearly a month of being stressed out wondering what all the fuss was about and imagining the worst – we learned that Kory was born with an extra rib – some weird physical anomaly that he hadn’t been aware of before. I was pretty ticked off we’d spent over four thousand dollars on doctor visits and tests, but I’ve come to the conclusion the American medical field isn’t about healing people – it’s about making money. So a few months after that whole episode, we were in Norway visiting Odd and Turid. I wanted to see how much Odd knew – since he is just a general family doctor with no particular specialty. We were in the car and he was driving us out to a nearby island for a hike. I suggested to Kory he ask Odd what the lump was on his collarbone. Kory was sitting next to Odd in the front so Odd took his right hand off the wheel, reached over and felt the lump. He got a puzzled look on his face, felt it again, and then said, “Well, I may need to use both hands, but I think that’s an extra rib. I’ve never seen one before, but I’ve read about them.” And that was that. Kory and I were amazed. We could have bought airplane tickets to visit Odd in Norway cheaper than going to see all the specialists in America to find out that diagnosis. So it was a huge shock to me today that Odd’s diagnosis of my ankle was incorrect. As it turns out - my foot was out of joint! I know spines get out of adjustment, but never have I heard of feet needing adjustments. So with one swift “pop,” by the chiropractor, my foot bone was back in the place God intended it to be, and all my pains went away. It was incredible. Hallelujah! And I really didn’t need the cold laser treatment after all, but the chiropractor did say it would help Kory’s back a lot, so he’s going in on Monday.

I continued to scratch things off my “to-do” list today, including our taxes – woo hoo! I even started cleaning up my office – double woo hoo. I’m actually looking for my car keys. It’s one thing to misplace them on a daily basis, but it’s a whole other problem when I can’t remember where I left them a year ago.

Kory was in his shop this morning tearing apart the pump for our pond and the regulator for the bar-b-que. He likes to find the exact little washer or nut that failed, but often those littlest of parts aren’t for sale so then he gets all crabby when he has to buy a complete unit of something for replacement that costs more money. That guy missed his true calling. I know he’s a good carpenter, but he’s really an incredible fix-it guy. And he’s great at fixing things with whatever is handy. If he has duct tape and bungees, he’s good to go. So I had to drive him into town today so he could buy the replacement parts to get the pond and BBQ back up and running. It’s important he feels useful but I’m worried about him moving around too much in the process. The seat in our Honda goes completely flat, so he did okay and was happy to be out of the house for a while.

Kaleb won’t be out of the house anytime soon, I’m afraid. He sprouted a few new spots, which are easy to see because he hasn’t had on any clothes all week. He walks around naked with a polar fleece blanket wrapped around him because he said, it doesn’t itch. I bought some speakers for his laptop so he was glued all day to his computer watching cartoons via the Netflix “watch now” feature over the internet. I guess if we had TV reception, it would be easier for both Kory and Kaleb, but then the rest of my to-do list might never get done.

(The photo today is the view from our yard.)

Life Lessons

Today Kory worked on his “vakmester”(?) (care taker) job for The Sinking Houses. He climbed under them all yet again to try and find some reliable way to measure how much they are sinking. He has to write up his monthly report this week and send it to the lawyer to justify our living here for free. I don’t think the attorney expects him to put in nearly the hours that he is working, but Kory has a certain level of comfort with things and he takes a while to get comfortable. He did measure our living space last night and I have to say I was even surprised that we are living in 735 square feet, as it feels much bigger than that. It’s a clever floor plan and we even have the luxury of a separate laundry room and a full size bathtub in the bathroom – neither of which you will find often in Norwegian houses.

We worked on the tenses of verbs in my language class today. I must say how thankful I am that I’ve been homeschooling Kaleb -- as all that grammatical lingo is still fresh in my head and came in handy. In English we add “ing” and “ed” to verbs to show present and past tense; Norwegians add “r” or “t” to show the same thing. That was one of those “ah ha” moments for me as I would hear the same root word “spise” for instance (eat) and sometimes I would hear “spiser” and sometimes “spist” and would wonder what was going on. Now I know.

Kaleb told me today there is a kid in another class that is really in love with Victoria so he is very jealous of Kaleb and his friendship with her, and as a result, the kid looks for every opportunity to beat up Kaleb. Uff da. (The photo is Kaleb and Victoria – his American friend at school.) We had quite a long talk about that situation and as it turns out, Kaleb actually enjoys the kid’s attempts to get at him as it gives him “an opportunity to try out my Avatar skills.” He has watched this kind of Karate cartoon called Avatar and he’s always going around the house slicing air in half and kicking the dust around. Now, he says, he gets to really put it into practice as he defends the blows. Apparently the kid (already sporting a red cast on his swinging arm) has yet to land one on him and he feels very clever in how he has escaped the attempts. He said it’s not so easy when the kid brings his friend (who has a black eye) along and they corner him in the changing room. At least once Victoria has come to his rescue and he has managed to escaped without injury so far. Kaleb has told the teacher a few times but apparently these two boys are well known as the school trouble makers (hence the black eye and broken arm?) so these are the things you deal with when you go to school. Best he learn it now, I guess. And he wasn’t the least bit upset in telling all this to me -- he kind of had a glimmer in his eye and a smirk on his face as he felt the whole thing was rather entertaining. Luckily the kids aren’t bigger than him and at least he is a bit older and definitely wiser, so we’ll see how it all shakes out over time. Kaleb knows not to hit back so his focus is all defensive but it will be hard on me should the day come they actually beat him up. I pray that won’t ever happen. At least they aren’t going after him because they think he is obnoxious or something – this is just all about unrequited LOVE. And we all know it’s LOVE that makes the world go round – I just hope it doesn’t knock my kid down in the process.