I got a reasonable night's sleep, despite napping a fair amount yesterday.  My headache today is (at least so far!) minimal, so the only real issue is my back, which (despite doing nothing yesterday other than hanging out on the couch) started bothering me again.  So I was on the heating pad during the evening, and foresee more time on it today.

This process increases the flow of oxygen and nutrients to the muscles, helping to heal the damaged tissue. Heat stimulates the sensory receptors in the skin, which means that applying heat to the lower back will decrease transmissions of pain signals to the brain and partially relieve the discomfort.

Birthday wishes have been arriving via FB, e-mail, and a couple by phone already this morning.