Hi, James!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

JB>  My sister sent me some stuff I have yet to devour
JB>  completely, that says they are most common under
JB>  the balls of the feet. I gathered from my Doctor
JB>  that any nerve can develop a neuroma if it's
JB>  traumatized.


         Oops... making a mental note to take better care of my feet!!  I
have collapsed metatarsals already, and I don't want further
complications....  :-/



JB>  As mine is located on the upper sciatic, [SP?]


         Correct.  And yes, I'm a retired English teacher... [grin].



JB>  most "remedies" would involve putting my leg to sleep
JB>  ... Forever! (sic.) Just when I was dropping amputation
JB>  as an option, the only option available is for me to
JB>  carry around dead weight.


         Sometimes the "cure" is worse than the disease, and IMHO
only you can decide which of the available treatments would suit you best. 
Doing as you've done so far... i.e. resorting to drugs and/or surgery as
little as possible... is a third option.  That way nothing is irreversible
& other methods are still available to you if you need them later.  I
think along similar lines....  :-)



JB>  That's a new one on me. "Kitchen sink percussion." As
JB>  an award one year, my teacher selected a instruction
JB>  and manuscript book of Latin percussion instruments.
JB>  Maybe he knew something that even I wasn't aware of at
JB>  the time, but I really took a shining to it. Come to
JB>  think of it, I was using a Philip's drip-coffee maker
JB>  basket as an instrument, so your definition is starting
JB>  to make sense too. 


         You got it!  I started using the term years ago as a shorthand way
of saying "everything but the kitchen sink"... i.e. all the toys
which don't come with the standard drum set & don't cost a gazillion
dollars.  As to the coffee maker basket, why not??  I like what Eric Nagler
& Rick Scott do with ordinary household objects, and I imagine you
could probably use the sink too....  :-))



JB>  have you heard any of that Canadian gal who records
JB>  with Cuban musicians? She calls it Jazz, but it is
JB>  very ethnic. Lovely how the phrasing interweaves.


         Sounds interesting, but I don't believe I have...



[In reference to the comment "I could write a book."]
JB>  I've got the time to read it. <-;


         Wonderful!  This is where I write most often about our daily life.
 I tried keeping a journal... but I get tired of talking to myself.  I need
input from folks like you to give me ideas, and inspire me to stick with
it....  :-)



AH>  We have to be careful not to put too much strain on
AH>  her hip & knee joints...

JB>  I can only report on what is working for me. Like I
JB>  said elsewhere, get the doctor to advise you. For me,
JB>  the muscle stretch was intuitive, but TOTALLY counter-
JB>  productive.


         Uh-huh.  Nora has a lot of intuitive ideas about such things, and
I'm impressed by how often they are exactly right for her.  But at the same
time I realize they must be tempered with some awareness of physiology... a
subject I know very little more about than Nora does.  It was a
physiotherapist who told us she needed to stretch certain muscles.  Now I'm
asking just about everybody we know who has an understanding of what's
involved how best to go about doing this because Nora wants to do
essentially what you did... she keeps stretching until some reflex kicks in
which says "That's enough!" and makes her toes curl or something.
 In many cases I have to help her, though, so I can back off and try again.
 She gets annoyed with me, but I think it's safer that way....  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+