My Aching Back

My Aching Back

About ten days ago I was going into my hot tub in the middle of the afternoon. That was when the weather was particularly hot and I was using the spa to cool off. Heat is such a relative thing. In the middle of winter, ninety degrees in a hot tub feels almost cold and you need to crank it up to 100 to be soothed. But in the summer, ninety degrees feels just warm enough to be soothing while still cooling against the warmth of the ambient air. I learned through motorcycling that air flow is cooling right up to about ninety, but then it gets stifling and decidedly unhelpful. I have come to realize that shade is the greatest invention of Mother Nature. I have purchased an articulated umbrella that gives me just right amount of shade to make a hot afternoon dip pleasant. That’s great while I am in the spa, but getting to the umbrella involves several very hot steps on iridescent tile or hot white stone. I usually gauge the heat index and do this hot-step barefoot or in Crocs as necessary. On that particular day it was hotter on my bare feet than expected so I was walking gingerly when I started to lose my balance. Falling and injuring myself is not something I take lightly since, at my size, a fall can be pretty dramatic. I had to do several calculations all at once with the instantaneous question of what type of fall would cause the least damage. I decided that stepping down onto the spa seat (about three feet down) would be less risky than anything else. I’ve never had knee surgery and don’t want to start now, and I have traumatized my left knee on two separate occasions starting thirty years ago in Spain (this incident involved the mounting of a donkey….don’t ask). But I went down and the water wasn’t deep enough at the seat to cushion the blow much. I hit hard, but instead of this jamming my knee, I immediately felt it in my left sacroiliac joint.

It was just a minor twinge as I did my best to roll into the spa to finish the less-than-elegant dismount from the spa coping. I am pretty sure I took the right and least problematic approach to this fall. But I did note that twinge in my lower back, the spot in the lower back most often afflicting humans with chronic back problems. I have always felt lucky that unlike many people younger than me and more fit than me, I have never had serious back problems. I have had the run-of-the-mill sore or even tweaked back spasms, but a few years ago I had an MRI that told me that my back is in pretty good shape with only a few minor bulges here and there that look a lot less severe than the normal person my age. But there was that ever so slight twinge in the lower back that deserved some watching.

I was convinced that it was such a minor twinge that it would pass very quickly and be of no major consequence. I sort of knew better, but wishful thinking has always been a specialty of mine. The real mistake I made was not so much being optimistic as it was not being more careful with what might logically have been an injury worth being careful about. A few days later, while I was trying to sort out how to make progress with my games area work, Handy Brad and I tried to move a large piece of the old turf that was laden with hundreds of pounds of silica. Handy Brad is just a year younger than me and has COPD from years of smoking and a pot belly that shows his lack of sufficient exercise over the last few years (one of the reasons he likes the work now). I somehow feel that while it is not a contest and Handy Brad is a work beast to be sure, I feel like I should be of more help with the heavy lifting (figuratively and literally). So, naturally, I leaned into the task a bit too much and I felt that familiar tweak in the lower left back, except this time it felt more strained.

A week ago I had a massage from Andrew, our very skilled and excellent massage therapist that comes to our home when asked. This would be my second massage in 2020 (I usually used to get a weekly massage to keep myself in good fettle). I specifically mentioned my lower back tweak and he explained that the sacroiliac (and especially the left side sacroiliac) is the most common back injury and that while it is not technically spinal, it is close enough to the spine (technically the connection between the pelvis and sacrum, which is the base of the spine) that it can hurt like a son-of-a-bitch and be quite debilitating. The massage felt good as Andrew tried to focus on the lower back and the upper right neck/shoulder, where I had last had some aches and pains presumably from a combination of sleeping funny and lifting too many rocks. But here’s the thing, the massages have made neither ache nor pain completely go away.

I have now had several nights, including last night, when I have been kept awake by my backaches. What I generally do is get up and find my way to either the bedroom or closet floor for some serious stretching. I feel that it helps, but it too is less than fully effective. This morning I awoke with way too little sleep under my belt and a roaring pain in my sacroiliac. It was that sort of blinking, blinding pain that made me wonder if I should seek more help than just a therapeutic massage. I did what all modern folk do, I Googled sacroiliac pain relief and learned about everything from cortisone shots to acupuncture to eating more green vegetables. I then sat in the living room with a pillow in my back and did a few emails. After an hour, I got up and it didn’t hurt, so I walked outside and down to the games area where the guys (Handy Brad, Pedro and Hildardo) were starting their tasks. It didn’t hurt and walking felt good. I told them I wasn’t up for doing any work, which was fine with all of them since I was paying the bills and they all wonder why I would want to do any work anyway. I showed Pedro and Hildardo the garage stepping stone project and the area I wanted turned into a sunflower garden plot. And my back, while not exactly 100%, simply didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt like it had last night and it didn’t hurt like it had this morning before I sat on the couch. Go figure.

But this time I was wise enough to know I needed to baby my back for the day, which is exactly what I have done. I know these things take time. I may still go to the chiropractor since I have several sessions prepaid, but it felt good enough today that I have shelved the thoughts of cortisone and acupuncture for the moment, and as for more green vegetables, it would have to bother me a lot more for that to get invoked. I hope to sleep better tonight, which is likely (just on the basis of sleep deprivation) and I think tomorrow will be a good day with minor outdoor work putting some finishing touches on the games area since we have now arranged for what I am calling a “soft opening” on Sunday for my niece and her family (two lovely kids who both have to deal with Cystic Fibrosis). I think I will survive my aching back when I think of all of what others like these two lovely kids and their parents have to deal with every day of their lives.