Update: I'm Not Dead

RECAP: So last Friday, while doing your everyday Atlas balance on Jeremy, I fell out of my standard upside-down orientation and rolled my neck pretty badly. Badly to the point of passing out and collapsing. Twice. After several hours in the ER strapped to an orange plastic backboard and getting stuck through a cat scan machine, it was decided that, while I hadn't broken or displaced any discs in my spine, I had most likely torn some muscles and/or ligaments in there someplace. Anyway, here's some drugs that will make you feel like a total zombie. Don't do anything for a few weeks. Crap. So A Different Spin placed a call to its West coast members and prepared to bite the monetary bullet to fly Alex out to Boston so he could go to Atlanta in my place for our first real gig of the season.

Update: Eff that. After two days of wearing my very stylish foam neck brace and being numb to the world, I decided to start rationing my drug use and testing range of motion again. I'd take the intense pain shooting between my shoulder blades over that crap any day. Turns out, my condition was improving. After another day, I had stopped taking my narcotics entirely; by Wednesday, I was out juggling with the boys again. God, it felt good to get out and do. Stuff. Anything, as long as it wasn't clouded by prescription drugs. By Thursday, we had an honest-to-God rehearsal again, and called Alex back to tell him we wouldn't need him after all. Friday we ran our fire show, built ourselves some new staves, and felt generally confident.

And now I sit in the internet cafe of the Sheraton hotel in downtown Atlanta at 2am, eating the sandwich I made myself at 5pm as we left our apartment in Boston. Our ski bag full of fire toys actually made it through airport security, and tomorrow should be an excellent day, provided we can track down a stupid Walmart that actually has some stupid fuel.

And I promised not to do anything upside-down until the machinery in my neck are back to one hundred percent, and I will keep my word; but at this rate, I think I'll be flipping over audience members in another week or two.