Back to the Basics




Those who know me, know that I have had a back problem for years. Many years.

I'm not sure when it started but I suspect it was sometime between the time I was a construction worker who could use his bulging biceps to lift 80 pound bags of concrete up over his wedge shaped body onto each well-tanned shoulder, and the time I became a computer network manager sitting at a desk most of the time. This was also sometime between the age of 30 and 51.

It started, and for several years remained, a low grade lower back pain. Not much more than a minor annoyance. Until that time around age 40, well maybe it was closer to 35, when somebody snuck up behind me and stuck a knife in it...or so it seemed. That was the time I decided it was time to tell my doctor about this minor problem.

Our family doctor was of the Osteopathic persuasion and would wring me out good and proper. The stab wound was instantly cured but the nagging pain continued. "Convince me there is nothing wrong" I finally told the doctor after many trips over several years.

All sorts of blood tests, poking and probing produced the expected result. "We can't find anything wrong." Stubborn and knowing perhaps just enough medicine to be dangerous, I explained that I didn't see a definite connection between lower back pain and blood chemistry. "We could do an MRI, but it's expensive," the doctor told me, apparently forgetting that the insurance company had been paying his bills for years.

They made me take everything off, especially my clothes and my metal, and slid me into the MRI machine like a slab of meat. After lying in the huge monster and listening to the "Thwump, thwump" for what seemed like hours, I was told that there was nothing wrong with my back. "Yeah, right."

And so began many more years of this annoying sensation which, about twice a year and without any formal announcement, would spasm - just to let me know who was running things.

Until Monday after Christmas 1997. I was feeling particularly youthful and pugnacious that morning. I decided to do something wild and crazy like leaning over the bathroom sink to turn on the water. Down on one knee I went. The knife got shoved in and then twisted. It wasn't going to be one of my better days.

This one didn't seem to be any worse than the others. I was on my feet fairly quickly, albeit carefully, by crawling back up the side of the sink. I can usually function fairly well after these little spasms as long as I don't make any sudden moves and take it easy for a day. I didn't really want to work hard anyhow.

I went downstairs very carefully to tell my loving wife, but there was no need. She took one look at me and knew. "Sit," she told me as I parked myself in a hard straight chair.

Remember, this was the Monday after Christmas...a weekday...soap opera day. My wife works hard, very hard, but she works out of the house and the dining room TV is turned on for noise most of the day. The dining room TV is not one of those fancy new push button remote controlled cable ready automatic color commercial skipping thingers. It's a $10.00 yard sale UHF/VHF knob tuning, rabbit ear sticking up color jobbie. We get two channels on it, one of them is even clear enough to watch. It's the channel that has soaps on all afternoon...right after the "My Daughter and my Son are Getting Married and I Don't Know Who's Mother-in-law I am" episode of Oprah Springer, or whoever it is. But I digress.

I discovered that Monday afternoon that the average man with a sore back cannot tolerate a whole afternoon of soap opera. I slowly went back upstairs to the computer, the cable ready TV and my reclining chair.

I jumped onto the Internet to say hi to a few folks and then settled into my recliner to watch some real TV. I had a pillow tucked into the small of my back for support, just like I am supposed to. Some of you know about the relationship a man has with his recliner so you know what happened next. Hard sleep.

Sometime during my little catnap, the recliner managed to recline. Not just a sit back and get comfortable recline, but a full-blown all the way back, dead-to-the-world, horizontal recline. With the pillow still behind, now under, my back which was now bent the way even healthy backs are not supposed to be bent.

I woke up. I knew right away I was in trouble. Big trouble. I tried to reach down to push the footrest lever down but I couldn't. It hurt too much. Excruciating, paralyzing, hurt like nothing I had ever felt before. I tried to sit up, I tried to roll over enough to get the pillow out from under me, I tried to sit up. I could do nothing. I lay there for while without moving and the pain subsided. I tried doing something again, anything. I couldn't.

I haven't experienced fear in a long time, probably since I was on the police force. I had controlled it then and I could control it now. I took a breath and gathered my thoughts.

I'd had spasms before, but they went away immediately and I could do things over the residual discomfort. This was different, I wasn't able to do anything. I tried convincing myself it was just another spasm thing that was lasting a bit longer. I could feel my legs. Good sign.

While all this was happening, my wife returned from her errands and came upstairs to see how I was doing. I don't think she was ready for what she found. She told me later the pain was all over my face. We decided to see if the neuromuscular massage therapist friend of ours could see me. First, we had to get me down a flight of steps...right after we got me out of the chair. Try standing up without using your back muscles and you will see how easy that was going to be.

Somehow, with help, considerable pain and sucking air, I found myself standing, very cautiously, afraid to try picking up a leg to take a step.

Eventually, after the nonsense discussion of calling 911 was over, I took a few steps. Then a few more. "I can do this," says I. I made it to the top of the steps. "If you're back spazzes on you, you are going down." she pointed out to me. I already had that part figured out. I lowered myself down and used my butt and my arms to make a two minute trip that I usually do in 5-10 seconds, but I managed the steps and got back to the chair.

Our friend could see me, but not until 7:30 PM. It was 5:00. Fortunately, I don't bore easily, not that I was going to run away from home if I did.

7:30 arrived and I had managed to make my way from the house to the van and then into the therapist's office. My wife helped me.

If you have ever had neuromuscular massage, you know it ain't a blonde Swedish girl giving you pleasure rubs. It is a necessarily uncomfortable, but usually relieving, session of elbows digging into you until you hurt. Not everywhere, of course, just the places that already hurt.

By the time she was finished, I felt wonderful ... until I moved. I tried to get off the table very carefully, but I couldn't be careful enough. I couldn't push myself up, turn to hang my legs over or anything. So there I was, in my underwear, totally dependent on my wife and the massage therapist to get me off the table, get me dressed and get me back to the van. When a man in his underwear has two good looking women tending to him and he doesn't care, you can be pretty sure he's hurting. The therapist followed us the seven blocks home and helped get me into the house.

All that was on Monday. By Friday I could walk again ... carefully. I went to see Dr. Little Finger. That's my lady doctor's unofficial Indian name. How she got the name is not for this writing, but she got it after she gave me a physical and pronounced that my prostate was healthy. You figure out the rest. From where I stand, or is it bend over, it's an appropriate name.

Doctor Little Finger pushed and poked and hammered and made me do things with my legs. No apparent nerve problems. No sore muscles either. Some muscle relaxers and I'm on my way.

I moved carefully for the rest of the week. By the time my Christmas vacation was over, I was back to normal. Next time, maybe this could happen during a work week so I can get some extra time off.