I Am Officially an Invalid
Recently I did a little too much while on the job* and my back went out. Now, I’ve heard about back pain before, but that was nothing that had ever happened to me. The back strain didn’t even hit me directly until a couple days after the fact; I’d had occasional aches when I got up, but I’d pop an Advil and that would be that. Then came the morning when I sat up in bed and it REALLY hurt, and I briefly thought “okay, this is a bit worse” before getting up for the usual drugs, but when they hadn’t kicked in three hours later I finally suspected something was up. When I couldn’t even lift a coffee mug without feeling back strain, I KNEW something was wrong.
This was all about a month ago now, and the worst of it is gone. But I’m still not the same - and I’m starting to realize I never will be, which is an interesting thing to wrap my head around. The worst part of this is, I’ve had to develop some really annoying habits.
I’ve been seeing a chiropractor now from all of this, and he’s been knocking me into shape twice a week now and nagging me to - exercise. Nothing like registering at a gym, just a series of stretches I’m supposed to do once a day now. I never was the sort that made exercise a habit, for one thing (that sound you hear is all of the people who knew me in high school laughing hysterically at the thought of me being athletic), but I also just don’t have the physical room for it. My apartment is so small that if I sit on the floor, that takes up all the floor space. I’ve been trying to keep up with this like a good girl, but I end up doing all these weird balancing acts trying to prop myself against the stove and extend my leg around the fridge and under the kitchen table while discouraging the cat from hugging my ankles and trying to trip me in the process.
I’ve had to get a special mattress - I have a couple friends who also have back trouble, and one, Colin, swears by high-density foam mattresses. It was cheap, too, although carrying it on my head back to my apartment from Allen Street was an experience I should probably have forgone.
I also have been contending with office ergonomics. My current temp job has me at a desk that is JUST exactly the wrong height, so I have this elaborate Rube Goldberg setup of two three-quarter-reams of paper under my feet and a desk chair devoid of arms with rubber bands on the chair to keep it up high enough, with a box from a stationery order under the monitor to raise that. Combined with one of those back pillows which I also fuss with because it doesn’t quite hit my back in just the right place, and which I am now going to forever have to carry with me to every temp assignment I have.
And it still aches. My friend Cliona - the other fellow sufferer - warned me recently that back pain never truly goes away, but you learn ways of dealing with it. I fear that that’s precisely my problem, that my ways of dealing with it are going to get increasingly more and more complicated.
* There will be a time to tell exactly how this all happened to me. That time is not now.
This was all about a month ago now, and the worst of it is gone. But I’m still not the same - and I’m starting to realize I never will be, which is an interesting thing to wrap my head around. The worst part of this is, I’ve had to develop some really annoying habits.
I’ve been seeing a chiropractor now from all of this, and he’s been knocking me into shape twice a week now and nagging me to - exercise. Nothing like registering at a gym, just a series of stretches I’m supposed to do once a day now. I never was the sort that made exercise a habit, for one thing (that sound you hear is all of the people who knew me in high school laughing hysterically at the thought of me being athletic), but I also just don’t have the physical room for it. My apartment is so small that if I sit on the floor, that takes up all the floor space. I’ve been trying to keep up with this like a good girl, but I end up doing all these weird balancing acts trying to prop myself against the stove and extend my leg around the fridge and under the kitchen table while discouraging the cat from hugging my ankles and trying to trip me in the process.
I’ve had to get a special mattress - I have a couple friends who also have back trouble, and one, Colin, swears by high-density foam mattresses. It was cheap, too, although carrying it on my head back to my apartment from Allen Street was an experience I should probably have forgone.
I also have been contending with office ergonomics. My current temp job has me at a desk that is JUST exactly the wrong height, so I have this elaborate Rube Goldberg setup of two three-quarter-reams of paper under my feet and a desk chair devoid of arms with rubber bands on the chair to keep it up high enough, with a box from a stationery order under the monitor to raise that. Combined with one of those back pillows which I also fuss with because it doesn’t quite hit my back in just the right place, and which I am now going to forever have to carry with me to every temp assignment I have.
And it still aches. My friend Cliona - the other fellow sufferer - warned me recently that back pain never truly goes away, but you learn ways of dealing with it. I fear that that’s precisely my problem, that my ways of dealing with it are going to get increasingly more and more complicated.
* There will be a time to tell exactly how this all happened to me. That time is not now.