Monday, March 06, 2006

Elbows, evolution and... man sweat

Okay, you're probably scratching your head right now wondering what new pain meds the doctors have given me to my headaches... or, you believe I'm completely nuts! However...

Today I said "good-bye" to my robo-arm contraption! The one that knocked the moulding off the side of the door of the Vue. You'd think if you injured one elbow, you would cope by using your okay arm. Works to an extent. Did you know an injured elbow affects your gait? Your posture? Your hips? It does. I've been experiencing pain in my right hip. Both the chiropractor and the physical therapist attribute that to the fact my arm can't straighten and the lack of opposing momentum causes over-compensation in my right side (the side that ain't hurt). In short, not being able to achieve full flexion or extension in my left elbow makes me walk funny.

Thinking that through as I shot around C-470 on the way to the ortho doc led me to marvel at how synergistic each and every part of our body is. (Don't look at me that way! My mom always told me to go look up big words in the dictionary.) Alright (sigh), synergistic means that multiple parts working together produce an effort or effect greater than if the parts worked all by their lonesome. (Thanks to WGI - Winter Guard International - I have that definition memorized).

Is it any sort of strange accident that our bodies work the way they do? Think about the miracle of birth. You'd have to be a complete moron to believe it all started with a big bang and a few slimy, single-celled ameobas! Only a creator can purposefully craft such a finely synergistic mechanism such as the elbow, or the body. God DESIGNED our bodies, our environment, animals for a purpose. To bring glory to Himself. To deny the FACTUAL creation narrative in Geneis is to deny God. So, I found myself driving and thanking God that He created me, and created me in such a way that my body can heal itself w/ a little help from Suzanne, my PT. She's brutal, but good.

Now for the man sweat thing. I think it was a Shape mag that I started to scan in the waiting room of the ortho doc that I read this tid-bit. I was jotting down the researcher people when the nurse called me. Apology for not having full citation, but this is too WEIRD to not share. Some Chemical company (Conell, Cornell -something like that) found that women suffering from anxiety can find calm by smelling the sweaty arm pitt of a man. NASTY! I'm NOT making this up, really! Women exposed to the smell of man sweat for over six hours experienced a statistically significant drop in their anxiety levels over women who smelled nice smells or nothing at all. Hey John, do a thousand jumping jacks and let me smell your pitts... NOT!
I'll take the anxiety for now :)

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