Just Another Day

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I threw my back out last Saturday. I've always thought that saying "I threw my back out" is funny - it doesn't really mean anything, but everyone knows exactly what has happened when I say it. I'm in terrible pain at the L5/S1 vertebral area. I can't bend, find it difficult to lift my legs to walk, and turning over in bed is agonizing to the point of impossibility. Let me be crude but honest as I include that bathroom processes are now greatly complicated for a number of reasons, from getting there to cleaning up, to getting up and getting my pants back in place. We never realize how much effort goes in to simple activities of daily living until we aren't up to performing them.

I have missed the last two days of work. I have tripled my steroid intake. I am alternating heat and cold therapy and have included my TENS unit and seen a chiropractor. The pain is still pretty bad. I have to go back to work tomorrow, and I'm not sure how I'll get through it.

I will, somehow. I always do. We adapt, we humans - to things we never thought we could bear. Not that chronic illness is as horrible as living in a war zone, or as challenging as being an amputee, but it comes with its own hurdles. I have learned to laugh about the pain, to assure people that it's par for the course, just another day. I have learned to push through soreness, weakness, and deep discomfort by focusing on my breathing or on whatever task needs to be done.

Until I can't. Like now.

My back is too painful and I am too impaired to keep pushing. So everything stops. No going to work. No cleaning house. No doing laundry. No resting - I'm in too much pain to rest. And I guess, in a way, that's par for the course too. Just another day.

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