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I went to see the doctor yesterday. Of course I googled him before, and he really is an eminent specialist in orthopedics and traumatology. He also made a good impression on me -- a guy who knows what he's doing, lots of experience. So I was being poked and prodded, then sent of to x-ray, and then back to his office.
The diagnosis is pretty unsensational: the beginnings of degenerative, i.e. age-related, spondylarthrosis, i.e. calcification of the vertebral joints. I suppose that three huge weight gains and losses over the past 30 years didn't help either.
For now, there's nothing much to be done: less tennis -- I'll reduce to 1,5 hours twice a week -- and more running and/or working out on the orbital thingy. Pilates of course ok, and massages would be beneficial.
I should see him in two months, and if the problem persists we're going to do an MRI, just to make sure there's nothing wrong with a disc.
Even though I would've been happier, had it been a purely muscular problem, I'm able to accept this with equanimity, since I don't have to change my lifestyle overly much. Of course I'd love to play more tennis instead of less, but since I have a suspicion or two that the pains might be caused, at least in part, by the cold, maybe abovementioned modifications apply more to the cold season than to summer. Let's see.
The boss of an Austrian movers' company, whom I met in Ankara and who's a really nice guy, had told me last week that he was going pass through Skopje yesterday, so I invited him to have lunch. I was an exceedingly nice lunch with good food and conversation. We'd just ordered coffee when his mobile rang and he apologized for answering, just briefly, because it was his wife calling.
I swear that I've never before understood as clearly as in that moment the meaning of "his face crumbled".
Poor guy, his wife called to tell him that her father, with whom he's very close, just had a heart attack -- out in the street; his heart actually stopped, but passers-by revived him and he was taken to the hospital.
It was heartbreaking, pardon the pun, to see the man go from laughing to crying literally in a second. And it also was one of those situations where there is no "right way" to react. All I could do was say, "I'm so very sorry -- if you need a few moments to yourself, the restrooms are over there (leaving him alone at the table wasn't an option, because the restaurant was almost full), and if you just want to hold my hand, here it is."
He'd come by car and of course decided to drive off to Vienna immediately -- this after seven hours' driving from Albania to Macedonia, which is challenging, to put it mildly -- and I was pretty worried. He must've driven like the devil, because he left at 3 p.m., and I got a mail telling me he'd arrived at 11p.m. That's an average of about 120 km/h, and considering the roads from here to the Serbian-Hungarian border... Oh well. He's there, unharmed, and I hope that his father-in-law will recover quickly.
The diagnosis is pretty unsensational: the beginnings of degenerative, i.e. age-related, spondylarthrosis, i.e. calcification of the vertebral joints. I suppose that three huge weight gains and losses over the past 30 years didn't help either.
For now, there's nothing much to be done: less tennis -- I'll reduce to 1,5 hours twice a week -- and more running and/or working out on the orbital thingy. Pilates of course ok, and massages would be beneficial.
I should see him in two months, and if the problem persists we're going to do an MRI, just to make sure there's nothing wrong with a disc.
Even though I would've been happier, had it been a purely muscular problem, I'm able to accept this with equanimity, since I don't have to change my lifestyle overly much. Of course I'd love to play more tennis instead of less, but since I have a suspicion or two that the pains might be caused, at least in part, by the cold, maybe abovementioned modifications apply more to the cold season than to summer. Let's see.
The boss of an Austrian movers' company, whom I met in Ankara and who's a really nice guy, had told me last week that he was going pass through Skopje yesterday, so I invited him to have lunch. I was an exceedingly nice lunch with good food and conversation. We'd just ordered coffee when his mobile rang and he apologized for answering, just briefly, because it was his wife calling.
I swear that I've never before understood as clearly as in that moment the meaning of "his face crumbled".
Poor guy, his wife called to tell him that her father, with whom he's very close, just had a heart attack -- out in the street; his heart actually stopped, but passers-by revived him and he was taken to the hospital.
It was heartbreaking, pardon the pun, to see the man go from laughing to crying literally in a second. And it also was one of those situations where there is no "right way" to react. All I could do was say, "I'm so very sorry -- if you need a few moments to yourself, the restrooms are over there (leaving him alone at the table wasn't an option, because the restaurant was almost full), and if you just want to hold my hand, here it is."
He'd come by car and of course decided to drive off to Vienna immediately -- this after seven hours' driving from Albania to Macedonia, which is challenging, to put it mildly -- and I was pretty worried. He must've driven like the devil, because he left at 3 p.m., and I got a mail telling me he'd arrived at 11p.m. That's an average of about 120 km/h, and considering the roads from here to the Serbian-Hungarian border... Oh well. He's there, unharmed, and I hope that his father-in-law will recover quickly.
