Little Bridget

I have a new friend; her name is "Little Bridget". I’ve been taking her hiking with me a lot lately. I’m not really sure why she keeps insisting on coming, though. She doesn’t even seem to like it. She usually starts complaining about an hour into the hike and doesn’t shut up until well after it’s done.

"Little Bridget" is almost always around now. At first, I hardly even knew she was there. She kind of snuck up on me. I first noticed her hanging around about the time that I snow shoed with the Calgary Outdoor Club up the back side of Blueberry Hill. It was quite a remarkable and challenging trip, with steeps slopes and deep snow with an unfortunate rotten layer of old snow buried 2-3 feet beneath a bunch of wet heavy new snow. The conditions made our day very challenging, and also gave us the opportunity to experience first-hand how avalanches start and what it means to have a rotten layer of unstable snow underneath some heavier top layers. "Little Bridget" was pretty well behaved that day, but since then she’s become bolder.

I think "Little Bridget" might have issues. Have you heard of those people who are only happy when they’re being mistreated? I think "Little Bridget" might be like that. When I realized that she probably wasn’t going to go away on her own I decided that maybe I should try being nice to her, so I started paying her more attention, giving her nice long stretches and warming her with my heating pad. Funny thing, though, the nicer I am to her, the less she hangs around.

Sometimes I take "Little Bridget" down for a visit with Trent. Trent is my chiropractor and "Little Bridget" has kind of a love-hate relationship with him. I think it’s more "love", though, because as much as she complains during the visits, she’s pretty happy and quiet for a while after we go to see him.

"Little Bridget" didn’t actually have a name until I took her hiking in Arizona with my very good friend, Bridget (now known as "Big Bridget"). "Little Bridget" was so enthusiastic about hiking in Arizona – she wouldn’t leave me alone for a second. I’m pretty sure it was because she enjoyed Bridget’s company as much as I do, so I decided to honor my good friend Bridget by naming my new friend after her.

If you haven’t guessed by now, "Little Bridget" is not actually a person. She is the discomfort in my piriformis muscle… in other words, a pain in my butt. Not that I’ve bothered going to a doctor about it or anything, but since I’m such a brilliant self-diagnoser, I’ve decided that I don’t have classic sciatica because I’m able to control it with stretching and heat. Piriformis Syndrome is a not-yet-widely-acknowledged condition in which the piriformis muscle compresses or irritates the sciatic nerve, resulting in pain, tingling and/or numbness in the buttock, and radiating down the leg.

One of the best things about "Little Bridget" is that by giving her a name, actually giving her the name of my pal, has somehow made her more tolerable. She has taken on a life and a character all her own and I’ve learned that as long as I don’t take her for granted she isn’t too hard to put up with. She is my companion, and something to talk about when I have nothing else to talk about. Ultimately, though, I do look forward to the day when she decides to finally move on. That "Little Bridget" can be a real badass.