Regular readers may recall that I have been waging my own personal war against a rugged bout with sciatica.

The good news is that I may be winning or maybe I just held on long enough. In any case, this part of my life has given me a whole new set of friends!

They are medical professionals from a variety of specialties like orthopedics to neurosurgery to physical therapy to the local pot purveyors. Many of them are also friends who experienced this pain before and have resolved it with a number of remedies. In fact, the number may equal the number of friends. In addition, there is a group of folks I call my new friends because I did not know them before I started using this column as my own “whine room.”

One of these folks had the most appealing suggestion, take Valium for four days to get really relaxed and then slowly get back into the exercises. My only question is why quit the Valium? I was reminded of an observation by Peter Lawrence.

“You don’t need to take a person’s advice to make them feel good. Just ask for it.”

Another interesting benefit to this journey is befriending all of the support people and enjoying (?) processes you encounter.

First of all, the ability of medical folks to create a “telephone answering jungle” answering system is unequaled in America today. Then, once you get to a real person whom you think may be able to help, you are advised that they will need to transfer you to someone who might be able to help. At this point you will probably encounter a music concert clearly designed to either put you to sleep or make your head explode. Pray for the sleep option since you will be there awhile. At one office I did enjoy a perfectly put together collection of music from the past 60 years. It turns out the staff had combined all of the music on their personal electronic devices into one big file of songs for the background music.

So, now, a patient got to hear music representative of the ‘50s and ‘60s, (probably the doctors), the ‘70s and ‘80s, (the nurses), and the ‘90s, (probably the young ladies managing the phones and filing). I was talking to one of the staff about the great music of the ‘50s and ‘60s and she opined that the music wasn’t all we left her generation. She talked about all of the history engendered in the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, and of course, the music. It was interesting that she had that perspective even though she was unable to tell me the name of the artist performing the song being played at that moment in the office.

The 7th Annual Dove House Golf Benefit is being held at the Port Ludlow Golf course on Aug. 17 with a noon shotgun start. The  $100 entrance fee is a bargain given the opportunity to have a great round of golf as you support a critical part of the social network here in East Jefferson County. Your ticket gets you a golf cart, a box lunch, prizes for the winners, hors d’oeuvres and bar. If you are already a member of the club, your ticket costs but $55!

Love a curmudgeon, have a great week, and Happy Birthday BJ!

(NedLuce@sbcglobal.net)