They day after my 33rd birthday, I got up out of bed in the midst of a hailstorm. I picked up my camera and took a picture of the golf ball size hail and then the camera slipped out of my hand onto the floor. I was tired - it was early in the morning and we had been out on the lake the day before. I had even wakeboarded behind the jetski - I wasn't so graceful, but I did it.
So when I yawningly bent over I felt a pop in my lower back and my muscles seized up. The pain took my breath away and I wasn't sure I would be able to take another breath -- just a repetitive short gasps --- inhaling inhaling inhaling until I would pass out.
The sensation was very similar to dislocating my shoulder - the feeling of something sliding out of place, the muscles spasming, trying to pull it back into place, and the breathlessness. I concluded that I must have dislocated my back, and the next thing would probably be paralysis.
I learned later that I had fallen near to that huge statistical category that says 80% of employees miss work at some point due to a back injury. I had missed it by two elements: I wasn't between 35-45 years old, and I wasn't actually employed.
I learned much later, when reading about back injuries that it is sometimes called a slipped disc because of the disc bulging or "sliding" out of place - which was exactly the sensation I had, but until that point I had thought was impossible. I had injured it once more a couple years later at Target doing a very benign reach, a year or so later coughing, and then finally picking up Tomris. After that time, I had an MRI to which the technicians commented on my scans: were you in a car accident?
So here's my theory. In a freak collision on a turf soccer field whose foundation was unforgiving cement, I injured my knee. I had surgery and I never fully regained my strength nor did I return to my active lifestyle. I got fatter and weaker and disproportioned so my back became vulnerable and eventually injured. When the doctor and the anesthesiologist showed me my scans, I cried. I knew it meant I could never have my health back to what it once was - it was something I would have to live with and maybe the exhaustion of the pain, no sleep, kids, and now this - well, I felt the loss of my invincibility then, because there was no way to make that black area in my spine white again.
I started taking the idea of exercising for my health more seriously. I'm still not that great at it - but while I was pregnant I took up walking everyday, and later swimming. Last week, I began exercising again - while its really hard for me to leave home and the baby - I started with squats in my room. I did twenty on each leg the first day and couldn't exercise again for three days because of the ridiculously sore. Another day I was doing planks and Tomris was climbing on me - sitting on my back. I was out a couple days after that too because the next day I felt it in my back. I eventually made it to the gym and did the elliptical and treadmill. The elliptical is easiest on my body, and the treadmill helps me keep up a pace of fast walking (otherwise I start to lolli-gag and daydream). It turns out I'm a terrible speed walker. I heard once it's all in the hips so I tried moving my hips more, but all that got me was another break in exercise because of back pain.
I have got to get my strength back.
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