Our mom has piriformis syndrome.
That happens when the piriformis muscle (that’s a muscle in each side of a human’s butt) contracts and won’t stretch out again. It pinches the sciatic nerve and causes pain all the way down the human’s leg.
Athletes like cyclists get it from sitting on hard bicycle seats but our mom isn’t an athlete (she’s soft and fat like Ursula the sheep but we love her anyway).
Mom got it from sitting on her computer chair many hours every day for the past few months. She got behind on her writing and had to work hard to catch up. That’s why she calls it “writer’s butt.”
At first Mom could hardly walk and it hurt too much to sleep, so mostly she whimpered all the time. Dad told her she walked like Walter Brennan playing Grandpa McCoy (Uzzi and I don’t know who that is but Mom didn’t laugh).
She walked like that so much that she hurt something in her other knee too. So Mom was not a happy camper.
But she took care of us anyway (she whimpered especially loud when she milked Bon Bon and Latifah). Dad helped but sometimes he has to work all day and Mom has to handle both feedings.
Uzzi and I volunteered to carry buckets of grain to the other goats but Mom said no. We were disappointed (I don’t think she trusts us).
But she’s feeling better now and she hardly limps.
Yesterday she stopped to scratch our chins. “Boys,” Mom said, “This is why people should think before they get livestock (we nodded—some of the animals here are livestock, they aren’t all goats like Uzzi and me), because livestock has to be cared for, no matter what. It’s a great responsibility when animals depend on humans for their every need. Animals mustn’t be purchased on a whim.”
“But you know,” she added as she scratched Uzzi’s neck, “The biggest lesson in this is that ‘all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’ (Uzzi and I looked at each other—who is Jack?). It’s important to do your job but work isn’t everything.
“The kids are almost grown up and I didn’t take time to play with them the way I did with you boys. I wish I could tell every hobby farmer this: take advantage of your blessings. Take time to walk in the meadow. Take time to play with the lambs. Paying bills is important but it isn’t everything and overwork hurts in the end.”
Then—she laughed! “Or at least it hurt me in the end.”
Uzzi and I don’t get it. Humans are confusing some times!
P.S. Mom put her computer chair in the back room and she’s sitting on a squooshy, yellow thing called a Swiss ball. Uzzi and I hate it. When we sit on it to compute, it rolls and we fall off!
