Guess Who Won!?!?

...i did.  and here's why...

Tanner had a swim meet in Bountiful this morning.  For various reasons, I decided to go despite the severe pain I'd had in my neck for a good week.  I'll get to that later.  Tanner first.

See this...

Yeah.  I'm pretty sure he was the youngest swimmer there.  If you aren't familiar with how meets are run, kids are seeded according to age, and their time (boys race boys, and girls race girls).  Tanner competes in the "boys 10 & under" age group, and is usually seeded last, because he's just a tad bit on the slow and inexperienced side.  That's okay. You have to start somewhere!

He ended up taking off 7 seconds from his 50 backstroke time....yay!  Progress.  And he took a whopping 49 seconds off of his 50 freestyle time.  SUPER YAY!  I'm confident he could have shaved an additional 30 seconds from the 50 free if he hadn't gotten silly and just bobbed up and down the last 4 yards.  Regardless, he is now using his arms and legs simultaneously...instead of separately.  It's a good thing.

Despite his placing last (not including those disqualified and no-shows) in his category, I won, because I got the see the standing ovation that every spectator and swimmer gave him after swimming both events.  I got to hear the "how old is that kid?!" and all the "Gooooooooooooooo!" from the people around me and in every corner.  It was hilarious!  I'm not sure if they were excited he finished because he didn't drown, or that he finally finished so they could go on with the next event.  Either way, it was awesome.  And he was a trooper!

I also won because I had my neck worked on....I don't think I posted about it here, but I did something stupid while lifting weights last week, and thought a disc slipped or something.  I had terrible pain radiating up the back of my head and down my left arm, and at times debilitated me from doing the things I need to do.  I have lived in constant pain for the last week, and was just about in tears at the meet.  I don't even remember half the drive down, because the pain was so sickening and I thought I'd throw up at any moment.  I would compare it to Kortlen's natural birth (pain at a 10, being the highest), with this being about a 12....a constant, sharp-shooting, tingling, hot, sickening & nauseating 12.  At least giving birth is over after a few hours.

ANYWAYS, my dear friend Karen asked how I was doing, and she could see I was almost in tears.  So she grabbed another swim mom who is a massage therapist to come and look at me...and then she worked me over right then and there, so painfully, that I burst into tears in the bleachers!  I was so embarrassed, yet SO RELIEVED!  I could move my head! Magic fingers!!! I think I was also crying because for the first time in a week, I had felt relief from the pain.  Throughout the course of the meet, my new friend Debbie worked on my neck about every 30 minutes.  The pain was still there, but subsiding.  Each time it felt better and better.

Turns out, the pain wasn't a disc (although I did go the the chiropractor Friday morning and it sorta helped).  Apparently my neck muscles and nerves were fighting each other and causing muscle spasms.  Ice helped IMMENSELY (I'd been doing heat....face-palm), and simply understanding WHAT was going on made me feel better.

Despite crying half the way home because the pain returned to be more than I could handle, I am even more excited to see Debbie again this week and have her work me over...I don't care how much she charges, I NEED the pain to be gone!!

And I'm tired of wearing the bag of frozen cranberries around my neck.  LOL!  It's kindof getting old.

Yup...I'm a winner.   


Note to self:  Don't do dead lifts and then check your form in the mirror.  That's just stupid.