I hate camping.

8 Comments July 26, 2016 drworobec

This past weekend, I went camping with my family. Just a short trip, for two nights and three days, we ventured to Pinery Provincial Park, on the beautiful shores of Lake Huron. But I have a shameful secret to share:

I hate camping.

It’s true. And now I feel exposed and raw and vulnerable. You now know the real me, one that includes a hatred of camping.

I grew up in the foothills of the Alberta Rockies, and regularly went camping with my parents and brother. I don’t remember loving or hating it, it was just something we did every Summer, and I would bring my books and fishing rod and head out into nature for a few fresh air sleeps. Back then, I lived in a small town, and “nature” was a big part of my everyday, so camping wasn’t much of a stretch beyond my normal. But now, living in a very urban centre, it’s more of an adventure for my city kids to camp. And they love it. We go annually, and my husband and I suck up our camping aversions, load up the SUV until we can’t see out the windows, and take our children to a campsite for a few days of marshmallows, lake swims, and free-range parenting.

Logically, I can’t quite figure out my negative feelings towards camping. I love the campfire part, the fresh air part, the hikes, the swims, the fishing, and the tent sleeps. But the higher-maintenance part of me wants clean feet and easy access to coffee, and I still haven’t figured out how to cook a gourmet meal on a campfire, like I see our camping neighbors doing. In fact, just last night I overhead a mother tell her son they were having Tex-Mex fajitas as I choked down my burnt hot dog and lukewarm beans. Sigh. And I can’t quite understand the appeal of spending hours making lists, grocery shopping, and packing the car, only to head to a campground to try to emulate the comforts of home. To each their own, and a true camper I am not.

I am writing this post from my iPad in the car, on our way back to Burlington. My grimy, exhausted children are colouring in the backseat, and my hairy, sweaty husband (he just wrestled the tent back into its bag. Another question: WHY OH WHY are tent bags always so small???) is looking for the nearest Tim Horton’s. In a couple of hours we’ll be home, and I’ll be scraping the filth off of me and washing campfire smoke out of my hair so that I can head into work and look forward to a blissful sleep in my own bed. But first, we’ve got a few hours of unpacking, de-sanding, and laundry to tackle.

Happy children. Check, check, double-check. So I can pretend to love camping for a few days a year.

“Today is a bad day for backs.”

2 Comments July 19, 2016 drworobec

“Just so you know, today is a bad day for backs.”

That was the text that one of our reception team sent to me last Friday morning. Three new patients had called in that morning, a much higher number than most Fridays through the Summer months, and all three had a primary complaint of back pain.

That part is not atypical; back pain is far and above the most common condition that I treat in my practice, despite us being a full-body, sports-based clinic. The stats don’t lie, and in fact, up to 85% of working people can expect to experience lower back pain in their lifetime. Couple that with the word “spine” in our clinic name, and it makes sense that a lot of low back pain walks into our office.

And guess what? We are really good at treating low back pain. Really good. We can make a big difference in a short period of time, and while I don’t have a randomized controlled trial on my patient’s improvement levels to present to you, I can say that our success rate is very high. We are good at what we do, and a large part of what we do is treat low back pain.

I will go a step further and tell you that what patients do outside of my office (things like following rehabilitation exercises and modifying activities appropriately) are far more important than what they do inside my office, on my treatment table. The hands-on, manual therapy part is a small piece of the puzzle in a lower back complaint. My most effective roles become those of educator (why does my back hurt?), ergonomist (what positions should I modify/avoid?), and personal trainer (what movements should I do to feel better?). My ultimate goal with a lower back pain patient is to avoid a reoccurrent episode down the road; the cycle of lower back pain is all too common. Again, education, ergonomics, and personal training come into play.

The point? Lower back pain is very common, NOT normal, and very treatable.

Happy Tuesday all.

Just like us.

6 Comments July 12, 2016 drworobec

It’s been ten years.

My husband and I celebrate our ten-year wedding anniversary on Friday, July 15th.

We were just pups when we got married (okay, I was a pup, he was an older pup), and our life has grown beyond our wildest dreams. In fact, my wildest dreams have always been vague notions rather than knowing exactly what the end result would be. But here we are, in a life we could never have imagined and are ever so thankful for.

I’ve written about my husband many times, and in fact, I wrote an eight-year anniversary post in 2014, so I won’t reinvent the wheel. But I’m better with the written word than the spoken word, so this seems like the natural place to shout my feelings from the rooftops. And since he’s my editor, he’ll read this first and he’ll smile. And that’s really what life’s all about, isn’t it? Smiles.

Company is coming to visit on Thursday. I love having out-of-town guests because it means a full house, lots of food in the fridge, and backyard laughs with no timelines. We’re hosting two sets of friends and family, back to back, and we’ll sneak away on Friday night, in between one crew leaving and one crew arriving, and have a laid-back dinner, just the two of us. It’ll be close to home so we can walk, big portions so we can eat, and a quiet setting so we can talk. Comfortable, low-key, content. Just like us.

Us is better than he and I. And I am far better because of him.