Oh the pain, the pain.

Correspondent Mr. Philbin inquired about the health of my back. As you may know, over the course of last year I developed a case of sciatica pain so bad that when I woke up in the morning it felt like someone was using my left flank to sheath a sword. The burning, cutting pain ran all the way down to my left foot, that noble appendage made famous by poet Christy Brown. Some mornings it was indescribable agony. On other, better mornings it was just describable agony.

So, at long last, I started physical therapy.

It's really not too bad. I have been going twice a week, with a series of three stretching exercises to do each day in between appointments. And I do them like my life plus a million dollars is riding on it. The appointments themselves are fine, sort of exercise-plus, where I do the same ones I do at home plus a few with their equipment plus a few invented to annoy people, plus a nice heating pad, and at the end, I get beaten up. It's great!

Overall it has helped. Some mornings I don't even have to hold up a hand for the dogs to talk to while I gulp an OTC painkiller before I take them out. I no longer spend a good deal of time making horror movie background yelps while easing down the stairs. It definitely is on the mend.

I'm not sure it's as good as my therapist says, however; she tells me the problem spot, based on my muscle reactions during therapy, has gotten much smaller. I think we are split on that decision. She is the professional, I admit, but it's my sciatic nerve. We may have to agree to disagree.

And oh, that sciatic nerve. I was on the table yesterday and she knuckled that puppy like she wanted to cut off the blood supply to my leg. I can see how a brief description of these activities could lead to prurient thoughts among the more adolescent readership, but believe me when I say nothing erotic occurs; it's like the opposite of that. It's like a movie you'd show a teenage boy to get him to stop thinking about sex. It just means mucho, mucho pain.

Afterward I feel better, because who doesn't feel better after someone stops hurting you? But I'm not the kind of guy who likes to pay women to hurt me. The high copay hurts enough.

I'm not a tough guy like my dad. He would gash himself at work and literally walk around bleeding for a while before he bothered to do anything about it. I don't think I heard that man cry out in pain once in my life; just a grunt when something was wrong at the level of broken bones. That's not me. I think I have a reasonable reaction to pain -- meaning, while on the table, I almost gave up the secret plans.

But I just gritted my teeth and held on. I mentioned when this all started that I know people who gave up on physical therapy because it hurt, and they were sentenced to unrelieved misery and hampered mobility as a result. I may give up the secret rebel base, but I'm not giving up on PT.

As Benevolent Oaf Mongo posted, "You'll benefit in the long run, even if your wallet doesn't!" I've seen my wallet; it's a tough old piece of leather, but I'll be damned if I give up before it does. Bring it!