The Problem with Back Problems

Before I messed up my back, I took it for granted. There were so many little things I did everyday without thinking, and now I think about them VERY HARD before, during, and after. Here are a few:

1. Dropping my car keys in a busy parking lot. I can't bend over to get them. Well, I could, but there is a distinct possibility of becoming a knurled-up back-hating speed bump in the process (and I probably still wouldn't be able to reach my keys).

2. Petting the animals. No matter how much they beg for attention when I come in the door, I must harden my heart and avert my eyes. Cats are short.

3. Stairs. The world is FULL of stairs.

4. Driving. It seems simple enough. I always think so when I get into the car. Then I remember that car seats are not comfortable, and that changing lanes and reversing require turning around in the seat. My back doesn't like turning. It doesn't like it at ALL. I have to three-point turn things I should be able to do with a Mack truck in one go because I can't see behind me well enough without being able to turn all the way around.

5. Walking. Ouch. Just...ouch. Sciatica=I would gnaw off my own appendages if I was able to bend over far enough to do it.

6. Sitting. I like sitting. I can do that. I get all uncomfortable and squirmy after a while, but generally, sitting is about as good as it gets. Until I stand up after doing it too much. Then I have the kind of binge-regret usually saved for a tub of Ben & Jerry's. Sitting is a sometimes food.

7. Showering. The parts of me that I can't reach need to be clean too, and if I manage to slip in the tub, there I will stay until the shower spray water torture drives me mad and I go frolicking in the pain-free fields of my mind for all eternity.

8. Sleeping. On my back=pain. On my side=pain. On my other side=pain. On my stomach=pain. I'm out of sides, and I can't sleep standing up...I don't think.

9. Casual motion of any kind. Carrying anything, picking up anything, putting down anything, reaching for anything: all scary. I don't make a move without being acutely aware of the fact it will probably hurt. Even if it doesn't, I wince anyway. In this case, preparation always beats surprise.

10. Writing blog posts. Okay, this one has absolutely nothing to do with my back and everything to do with my calendar and my brain. I am wrangling those two ingredients currently so I can get back into the groove of things with my writing. Short of the water torture mentioned above, it is one of the only activities in which I can frolic in pain-free fields and live to tell about it.

Inspiration Monday: Glass Half Full

I consider myself an optimist.

Some days test my limits to their last little optimistic droplets, but on the whole I can usually convince myself that in some small way or another, the glass is still half full.

Of course, that doesn't mean that I don't get horribly greedy with my half-full glass, hugging it tight to my chest and giving angry eyes to anyone who dares try to suck it dry.

Today was one of those days.

It was one of those, "I was put in traction and it was the best part of my day," days.

I'm not kidding, and the traction didn't even go right, so you know I mean it.

In case you didn't know (like I didn't before today), a traction setup is comprised of a weird table that reminds me of something a magician might use for easy disposal of person-chunks after the sawing-in-half trick, two thick belt thingies that look halfway between my dog's seatbelt harness and a medieval torture device, and a machine with a sole purpose to pull a person's lower portions away from their upper portions.

I'm generally fond of my lower portions being attached to my upper portions, so I was EXTREMELY NERVOUS when my physical therapist strapped me into the thing. She pulled and pulled on the straps with her whole body weight. "Can you breathe?" she asked. I said yes, and that gave her the cue to pull even tighter. "If you can breathe, it isn't tight enough!" she said with a perky smile and gave them another good tug. Then, just in case, she got Husband to give them a few more tugs for good measure.

Satisfied that even a superhero couldn't have pulled those straps any tighter, she turned on the rack...er...traction machine.

Let's just say that I know what the pair of jeans in the Levi's logo felt.

Rrrrrrrrrip!

Until I slipped out of the straps, that is.

It was my fault. I was breathing all along and I liked doing it so much, I didn't tell her.

Instead of squeezing the marrow out of my rib cage, the upper straps went slipping right on up and over my torso, catching on my arms and slipping up and up until I had to raise my arms over my head and the strap ended up over my mouth.

It was ridiculous. And hilarious. Despite how absolutely stupid I felt, it was still stretching my spine like it was supposed to, so I stayed the course. My PT, who is actually extremely competent and so nice I don't even threaten to kill her off in a novel when she pokes at all my hurt places, stood by the door to keep anyone from seeing how ridiculous I must have looked. She made sure everything was stretching me correctly (and safely) and asked me over and over if I was comfortable, which just made me laugh.

It is hard to laugh in traction, but it is possible, even with a strap covering half your face. "Yes, I'm fine," I tried to say, though it probably came out a little more like, "Yssmmffnnnn," roughly translated.

"I'm glad you have a good attitude," she said, finally allowing herself a laugh. It spread around the room until all the tension left was in my spine where it belonged.

Until she said that, I hadn't actually thought I did. Until then, I probably hadn't, truthfully. I realized then that a good attitude is a choice, and that I had chosen to laugh when I could have complained, chosen to be easy when I could have been hard. I still got my back stretched out (I'm probably taller now, and skinnier I hope), I can now write very accurately about characters tortured on the rack, and I learned something about purposeful optimism I can save in my pocket for later.

Optimism and pessimism are not polar opposites, they're points on a continuum called Reality. It doesn't matter who you are or where your set-point is on that continuum, it is your Reality. We are all "Realists" from where we sit. Sometimes all it takes to see the good in things is making up your mind that you can and you will. It will surprise you how readily good can appear if you just let go of the reasons not to see it.

If you're a writer, take this to the page, inside and outside. Give your characters a point of view and a purpose--if their glasses are half full, figure out why and test their limits. If their glasses are half empty, figure out why and test their limits. Then, take a look at yourself. See how your own glass is filled, then....figure out why and test your limits.

In the end, maybe it doesn't have to be about half-full and half-empty glasses anyway. Maybe we can withdraw from that debate and change the whole glass system. Take what's left in your glass, whether it be half full or half empty, and pour it into another, smaller glass. Then it is full and there are no two ways about it.

Life Marches On and So Do I

After a really fun couple of weeks with a seriously aching back (read: not fun at all), I am on the mend. Kinda.

Even though I'm on desk duty at work, my doctor advised me that I could stave off a relapse by lying on my back with my legs propped up on a chair. Let's just say that I've ended up a few times lately with this as my view:

This end up.

At one point, my boss plopped down in the floor beside me, held up a stack of reports over both our faces, and we managed to have a meeting down there. Don't knock it. I'll bet her back felt better, too.

I have been going to physical therapy for a week now, and it has been an interesting experience. By interesting, I mean painful, mostly, but also rewarding.

One day while I was working on my "sit-stands" (which is exactly what you think it is, 10 reps, 2 sets, and yes, you can do it wrong--trust me), I scanned the room desperately, starving for anything to look at that would tear my mind away from the images of dull steak knives sawing me in half with every sit and every stand. I finally lit on one of the stretching tables where a therapist was working diligently with a determined-looking older man and his new artificial leg.

Suddenly, my sit-stands were a little less tedious. A bit. My PT, way too sweet for all my grumpy growliness, ushered me through my own paces and stretched me out like a stubborn piece of stale taffy. Eventually, she tucked me into a room with a heating pad, strung me up to an electrical thingy (yes, that's a technical term...or a brand name...or it should be) that basically electrocutes you a tiny, tingly bit, and then flipped off the lights so I could relax.

But I didn't. Not really. I thought about the man with the missing leg. I thought about him being my age, when he had two good legs. I wondered if he had appreciated them. I wondered if he wanted to go back in time to when he was four, when he scraped that knee and it bled real blood and pain. Would he tell himself to look close at that knee and that blood and cherish it because he might not always have the privilege? Would he go back to when he was a young man, in his twenties maybe, when he spent all his time on those legs, walking, running, dancing, kicking off the covers in the middle of the night? Did he ever think that there would come a time when he couldn't? Maybe he had played football, a kicker with a golden toe. Maybe he didn't and wished he did, cursing his own leg, which might have had a birthmark just like his father's, and never knowing that he would regret it with all his heart while he lay on a table to stretch a brand new leg that couldn't even bleed.

We were the last ones to leave in the evening, my husband, the nice PT, and me. I was stiff and sore when I hauled up off the table and waddled my way to the door. Just when I felt a self-pitying grumble well up in me, I glanced back to the table where the man had been. He was gone, finished for the day, probably eating his dinner and living his life, laughing to his loved ones about the ignorant people he caught pitying him, he who had two perfectly good legs as far as he and anyone who counted was concerned.

So I didn't pity him. Instead I respected him.

It's a funny thing about respect. It earns you so much more than pity. I did feel sorry for the man who didn't have what I have, what I got for free and didn't earn or especially deserve, but if I stopped there on that thought, it would have been pity. So I didn't.

I thought about what he did in the short time I watched him that I could do, too. He worked hard. He took advantage of opportunity. He went about the business of living his different-shaped life, and he made it look easy.

I could do those things, even with a messed up back. Maybe even better because of it. Anything, even pain, can be a gift if you sit still and get over yourself long enough to unwrap it.

Captive Audience

Yesterday, while I was at the laundromat with one of my most vulnerable clients and everything she owns that could possibly fit into a washing machine, my back flipped me the bird and went on strike. No really, I could actually hear its little overworked cusses bumping up my spine to my ears as I lost all strength to my lower body and excruciating pain ripped me into tiny little pieces.

If your back has never gone out, do not let it.

Do NOT.

Not even if you are really curious.

Not even if you are writing a really important novel about someone whose back goes out.

Do NOT.

I didn't want to freak out my client--this is an easy thing to do and usually requires hours to undo--so I just played it nonchalant. I leaned my elbow on a triple-load washer that was almost my height and tried to pretend that I was still breathing. I sneaked a call to my supervisor and she came in like Social Work Superwoman and took over with my client and drove her home. Husband then arrived to take me home. Getting in the car was difficult.

(The italics mean that it was OH SO PAINFUL THAT I LOST MY RELIGION IN THAT PARKING LOT. ALL OF IT.)

Getting out of the car was worse, but I did not have anymore religion to lose, so I just yelled a lot. I'm sure the neighborhood association thinks my husband is a horrible murderer. (Horrible because he's not good at it because I am still intermittently yelling for someone to hurry up and finish killing me when I move the wrong way.)

Last night, Husband left the TV on for me since I was forced to sleep on the couch. I was in a lot of pain and woke up in the middle of the night to find this blaring proudly:

 Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II.

No. Too sleepy and groggy and uncomfortable even to laugh at Godzilla. I looked around for the remote--which I spotted across the room where I had no hope of getting to it.

I was stuck. I watched Godzilla tromp his way through Kyoto while Rodan received a life-force boost from a chorus of children singing a magical song they heard emanating from a prehistoric plant. Meanwhile, this hatched from an egg that glows red like a giant mood ring when it is grouchy:

No, that's not Barney with a skin condition. That is Baby Godzilla. Yes, that's a proper name because that is what they named him. Or her.

Because of Baby Godzilla, they were able to glean that they weren't able to defeat Godzilla because Godzillas have extra brains. In their HIPS.

Right about then, when they started plotting to shoot out poor Godzilla's extra hip-brains to paralyze him, I started feeling some kinship with the old boy. I mean, he can't help it that he has big feet and Kyoto was in his way. They have his Baby Godzilla, for crying out loud. He's just looking for his kid. Or something. Either way, they shouldn't give him lower back pain. It's INHUMANE.

But they did. And then Rodan came into the picture and zapped Godzilla with his special child-song powers and made his hips better and he went off into the sunset with Baby Godzilla to smash cities another day.

I dozed off somewhere in there and woke up this morning still dreaming of Barney smashing Japanese landmarks. I thought that surely, SURELY this movie was a dream because if it had been real, I would not have watched it. Then I moved and yelled and hurt and remembered.

Where's Rodan when you need him?

Anyway, since I've been splayed out on the couch, I have realized that being a captive audience has its perks. I will no longer think anything my imagination conjures is too bizarre because Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II makes anything I come up with look positively sobering (and I have an in-progress novel involving mind-controlling towels. Seriously). I have gotten some quality time with the animals:

Also, I have no excuses not to read and write. A lot. I'm going to make the best of this.

And when I can't, when I have to make that inevitable excruciating walk to the bathroom, pay no attention to the screeching and groaning. It's just Godzilla tromping through the Memphis suburbs, minding her own business.