A Perfect Storm...
Yesterday was not a good day. For that matter, today isn't much better (so far) but more on that in a moment.
Yesterday morning the weather report called for possible showers in the evening, despite the fact that the previous forecasts had been for Hot and Sunny until at least Sunday. This is typical here; a day or two of Hot & Sunny will (of course) create rain clouds, and usually by the third day we're seeing thunderheads appearing. You'd think the guys at the weather office would have recognized this by now. In any case, we needed to get our hay brought it before it started to rain, so Trixstir and I headed out after breakfast with the Explorer and small trailer to pick up the bales.
We managed to pick up all of the bales in the front field and behind the house; about 30 bales in total. By then, my back was getting really sore, and Trixstir had to head into town to open the bowling alley. Last Spring when we stacked those 50 bales, my arms were sore but I had no problems with my back. This was different though; my back was really hurting, so I thought I'd take a couple of the back-pain pills and relax for a couple of hours. I made a light lunch (a piece of garlic sausage and a large dill pickle) and sat down to watch Discovery Channel. I felt pretty good, until I tried to get up again.
The pain was excruciating, and I wound up half-twisted on one knee on the floor. At that time, my right thigh went into spasms, and I had to stretch that leg out to stop that from getting worse. It took me a couple of minutes to regain my feet, and stumble to the bedroom where I lay down. That felt fine; I can lay down without pain, but any other position hurts at best, and is excruciating at worst. Sitting hurts quite a bit, but the true agony comes from trying to stand again, or any other movement that requires flexing my back. You never realize how much the muscles in your lower back are involved in walking until you can't move them!
To make matters worse, the neighbour started spreading cow manure out on the fields shortly after I lay down, and we had a record-high temperature of 34c yesterday afternoon! The stench of cow-manure was overpowering, and it took me a good five minutes to work my way over to the window to close it. I couldn't reach the fan to turn it on, but thankfully the kidling was home by then and I got him to turn it on for me. So there I was; baking in the 34c heat, writhing in agony from the pain in my back, and suffocating in the stench of cow manure. Not a good day!
After a very restless night, today the pain is no better. I've made an appointment to see the doctor (and get some real pain-killers and other happy-pills) but that isn't until 2:45pm! For better or worse, the bowling alley isn't busy enough yet that Trixstir has to be there in the early afternoon, so she can take me there and back; there's no way I could make the trip myself. I just hope that I can manage the stairs to get out our front door!