Sway back

Each year our county holds a health fair so all the older people can go and get free medical screenings for things such as bone density, hearing and oral health. The older people and me. Because I am a hypochondriac.

This year I stopped by to get a second opinion from a dentist. While I was waiting, I noticed one of the booths was a chiropractor with some sort of spine scanner thingy. He would point the gun-like device at places on along your spine. Different bars of color appeared on a screen on either side of an image of a spine, indicating if yours is in alignment. Green short bars are good. Red bars are bad. The longer they are, the worse it is.

I decided to try it out of curiosity, since I've had both back and neck injuries. I watched as he did it to an tiny hunched over older lady in front of me. She had some short red bars, and he told her she might want to get her spine checked out. I figured that my reading would be about the same, because though I am young I was injured. It wasn't.

The bars near my neck were nearly off the charts red. My lower back didn't look to healthy either, with red bars extending from the lower right and upper left. The chiropractor was speechless, till he finally said, "Wow you really need to figure out what the source of the stress in your life is."

Some guy in the line said, "You'd better give her your card."

I took it as an excuse to book a massage, and skipped my workout today to go. It was great stress relief.

Lesson learned: Maybe I should take up yoga. Or maybe I should retire to a convent in Italy.