A Show, Health, etc.

Fun, if occasionally cranky, times last night. The Hickoids had the pleasure of playing right before the Dead Milkmen in San Antonio, and I write this several hours later. When we were put on the bill, I was surprised the Dead Milkmen were still playing, as they'd fallen off my radar many, many years ago. Turns out they reconstituted in 2008 (their original bassist commited suicide in 2004) and have played the odd festival or four-show run many times in recent years, even recording and releasing a couple of new albums in the 2010s. They played Austin the night before the San Antonio show, and both shows were packed to the gills. The San Antonio show was quite a sight, and it certainly provided the Hickoids with the largest crowd we've played for....maybe since I've been in the band. Michelle and I watched the DM from off stage left, which was as comfortable as could be, concerning the circumstances. I was pleasantly surprised at how many songs I remembered; I'll have to re-investigate their catalog.

I mentioned the word "cranky" right off the bat, as there were little annoyances that had more to with situation than anything else. The support bands' drummers all had to set up in front of Dean DM's drum set, which pinched things depth-wise a bit. I had a rack tom and cymbal stand arm in my back most of our set. Also, at some point during the beginning of "storytime" in "Stop It," both my right side cymbals had fallen onto my floor tom. I had no idea how it happened; after getting Tom's attention, he set them back up for me. Also, Jeff sometimes announces things cryptically, which for me is "I think I know what's next, but, uh...." He introduced a song as being dedicated to Davy, which used to always mean "Driftwood," but last night it meant "Nightlife." I was sitting there conducting tempo for "Driftwood," until I was finally informed what was really going on. Not the most precise show last night, but it was fun. We were cut off after "Truck." The stage manager started giving the me the cut-off sign right before we hit the bridge of that one. But the show HAD started late; I was surprised we made it as far as we did.

So, I'm a bit tired this morning. And achy. But not breaky. I was recently put back in physical therapy for whatever condition I'm going through at the moment. I'm having nerve issues in my right leg. Luckily, this time it has nothing to do with how my kick drum ankle is responding to my brain. That's all fine at the moment. But my right leg is in at least some pain all the time now. My therapist (same one as last time) has begun thinking it has nothing to with my back and everything to do with my hips and leg being muscularly tight. Whatever the case, I hope I have relief soon. This is slowly starting to drive me up the wall, and I think it's having some impact on my working relationships.

Let me back up a bit. In the summer of 2016, I started noticing some strangeness in my kick drum leg (right), in particular my ankle. No pain or tingling, but a loss of sensation. My usual playing includes some grace notes before actual full strikes on the kick drum. Think of it as a "ba-BUM, ba-BUM," instead of just "BUM, BUM." Well, I had stopped feeling the "ba"s. And this was especially affecting my Pocket FishRmen parts. When I quizzed Jason, the PF bassist, about it, he listened carefully, and said "no, you're hitting all the stuff you normally hit." But the problem was that without feeling it, I didn't really THINK I was doing it, and I started to lose confidence, and as a result of that, started clamming more (a nicer way of writing "fucking up"). In the Hickoids, this was not as much of a problem, but in Pocket FishRmen.....well, there were several songs I just didn't want to play.

I visited my doctor about it, and he suggested physical therapy, and I began going to ProMotion (and specifically therapist James) in early October - right before a Hickoids European tour. He worked on me and gave me exercises to do. After the tour, I continued the PT until sometime in January. I didn't notice much improvement, but, also in January, I bought a back inversion table. Sometime after that, I noticed an easing up of the symptoms, and the full feeling came back to my right ankle when playing. I really don't know if this was due to the months of PT, or the table, or both, but I'm glad that's working again. I can't really use the table much, although I still do from time to time, due to vertigo issues I often get when using it. Sometimes five minutes on the table will cause me many hours of nausea. But I still do it, at least occasionally.

Now, back to October of 2016. A bit after beginning PT for my back and right leg, I noticed a "waking up" of some nerves on the lower right side of my body. In particular, a nerve going down from my right hip into my right leg - I'm assuming, my sciatic nerve. It started as mild discomfort, but has grown over the last year and a half to be a constant pain in my lower right side. That's why I'm back in physical therapy now. Some days, it's painful to just walk somewhere; most of the time, that's not too bad. So James has been working on me again. I had an MRI a couple of weeks ago, and the results showed nothing that should impact my right side. As a matter of fact, I have a herniated disc touching a nerve on my left side, but I have no issues there. Strange. So, James has begun thinking that all this pain might just be my muscles being extremely tight. We'll see, I suppose. I'm glad I have insurance, but these co-pays are adding up! (After the MRI, my doctor referred me to a PA, who had no information to share. They put me on Gabapentin, which I don't think is really doing anything. I have an appointment with this same PA in a week or so, but I'm not sure I'll keep it. That's a more expensive co-pay.)

So, in a nutshell, I'm in pain, but I can play the drums effectively. If I had someone to move and set up my gear, I'd be fine. It's that part of the game that has me worried. I really need to find someone's 21-year-old kid to pay to help me. That would be the best solution!