Bad Back

Back problems are fun. You wake up one morning and realize the minute your feet hit the floor that something is wrong. There seems to be a giant knot half way between your neck and your waistline on both sides of your spine. This knot makes fully upright walking painful, so you make adjustments in your gait to the point where it is clear to literally every other human being you will encounter on this day that something is wrong with you. You think that a hot shower will help but it doesn’t. The full implications of this back issue don’t become clear until it’s time to brush your teeth. There is no way to perform this crucial part of your daily hygiene regimen without excruciating pain. But you do it anyway because...well, because...ewww!

You take a couple extra strength Tylenol. They do less than nothing. You go through your day walking very slowly, listing slightly starboard, while answering the question everyone never fails to ask, “What happened to you??”  When you arrive home for lunch you take another couple extra strength Tylenol, eat a quick lunch, then plop yourself down slowly into your trusty recliner, and adjust the heating pad perfectly in the center of your ailing back and turn the button on to high. Thirty minutes of this does next to nothing. You head back to the office only now the back feels worse than it has all day. Only trouble is you have two clients coming in back to back. They both arrive on time and watch me walk up to them as they wait out by the receptionist, with a concerned tilt of the head right before they both ask, “Whoa Doug, you’re moving awfully slow there, big guy. What happened to you?”

After my last appointment I head back home, take two more Tylenol—for reasons that remain unclear—then retire once again to my recliner. Only this time, I decide to try ice. I pull the frozen back thingy out of the freezer, wrap it in a dish towel and place it dead center of my now throbbing back and settle down. Again, thirty minutes of this new treatment yields a freezing cold back...that still is as stiff, tight and painful as it has ever been since the first tentative steps of the morning. After a delicious meal prepared by my sainted wife along with a tender massage, I am back upstairs to the recliner. Only now I have taken the first muscle relaxers of the day, the only slightly remedial course of action I have taken all day. The trouble with the muscle relaxers are that taking them in sufficient quantities during the day I have found to be unwise. When you invest money for a living, it is kinda crucial to be in full command of all of one’s faculties, although even that does not insure success. But its better than being so sleepy you can’t put together a simple declarative sentence without a yawn.

This has been happening ever since Monday morning. If the past is prologue, it will continue like this until Saturday or Sunday when, like magic, it will suddenly heal itself and I will be back to normal.

So what do I give as an answer to all the questions I got all day? My wife thinks it has something to do with all the heavy lifting and cleaning I did to help her prepare for the big bridal shower Sunday. Maybe, but who knows? What I tell people is that for many years now I have had a quirky back that acts up every once in a while, for reasons that remain elusive. Its nothing serious and I will be fine in a few days. All true. However, it still sucks. If you’ve never had back problems, say a prayer of thanks for your good fortune. If you have had back problems, I am open to any and all suggestions for home remedies or back pain hacks you would like to pass along!