In case you were wondering what yesterday's photo was all about, Erika was kind enough to come over to my 'sickbed' (really, I was on the floor next to the wall heater) and dispense some wonder Chinese medicine that she picked up at a pharmacy in China last year after she walked up 6,000 steps.

For reasons only known to my sciatica nerve and the deep muscles that connect my right hip to femur, the muscles decided to completely seize up and pinch the nerve into intense pelvic & back pain while I was sitting on the floor working on the computer yesterday morning.

For the first few hours, I could not stand up due to numbness in my legs and so I had to either just lie down or crawl over to my bed to use the post to pull myself up. I called a few folks for advice on what to do, Erika suggested that I call around to see if anyone had some of the muscle relaxant Flexeril and my mom suggested that I go to the urgent care. I couldn't get out of the house, let alone drive over to the local urgent care, so I waited on the floor until I could hear some of neighbors moving around. Lucky for me, neighbor Earl and across the way neighbor Tony had just got home. Earl had some Flexeril and Tony gave solid medical advice on what to do with it (Tony is a Respiratory Therapist at a local hospital).

Before you, the reader, get all cranky on me and say, "You shouldn't take prescription pills from people, but only have it prescribed by a doctor." While this may be true, I hate my HMO. Hate them. It would take a lot worse than lying on the floor in pain to get me to call their damned advice nurse again to get the go ahead to go to the emergency/urgent care on a holiday.

But I didn't have to, as I crowdsourced great care and advice from neighbors, Erika, and Twitter friends (thanks v, for the advice on stretches!). The best part of all of this is when Erika showed up with the Wing Long Red Flower Oil that she picked up on her trip to China last year.

Between the Wing Long Red Flower Oil, Flexeril, Advil, Erika's Mom's 1970s heating pad, and two days of bed / floor rest, I am feeling better. I could actually put on pants today and sit in a chair. Rather than intense sharp pain, today's pain is dull. I hope tomorrow that the pain will have further dulled.

If I want to be optimistic about this, I could say that I have had a forced 2 day, do nothing holiday. Thanks everyone for helping out.