The “lockdown” has yielded two unexpected consequences:
- As home-cleaning services including freelance ones are not permitted to continue, it was an opportune time to terminate the services of our weekly cleaner. In fact, she terminated the arrangement herself: unprompted, she showed up to return our house key. “Not nice me hanging on to it since I won’t be coming for a whole month,” she said. “We’ll contact you if we need you in the future,” we said. We also left her with the impression that the likelihood of that happening is slim since the wife has just decided to take an additional off-day each week, and extra help is not really needed. Hallelujah! The end to at least 12 years of pilferaging, finally. (Petty thievery is not worth a confrontation or a police report, but annoying, nevertheless.)
- My back pain has vanished (except for a dull ache in the background that is hardly felt, plus a tinge of tingling numbness in my legs). But let’s not rush to saber that bottle of Dom Pérignon just yet. Typically, pain emerges after 15 minutes of walking. Hence, no walking = no pain. Holed up at home, the only walking opportunities I have are from downstairs (living/dining room and kitchen) to upstairs (bedroom). That, plus a bit of contemplative pacing (“walking meditation”) in my bedroom with my komboloi, hardly constitutes the sort of distance that would send debilitating pain to my back. Lack of chances for long walks does not augur well for my fitness. (Prior to this confinement I would still walk and when the pain surfaces after 15 minutes, I would bend forward to “decompress” and then resume walking. I would do this walking from point A to point B, no matter how long the distance, and yes, I take an awfully long long time to get anywhere! Long story short: I was still walking and burning calories.) Now, it does mean having to increase the frequency and intensity of the physiotherapy-type exercises and workouts prescribed for me. With the strengthening of back core muscles I hope to avoid having to undergo the risky open-back lumbar spinal fusion surgery that my neurosurgeons have been hinting at recently. (Unlike drugs, medical implants are not required to be tested in clinical trials. Just imagine that!)
These are the exercises I am doing:
Other than the two unexpected consequences I just mentioned, this period allows me to eat the type of food that doesn’t leave me feeling guilty, such as these three salads I ate for lunch this week:
