from October 2006
Dear back, I am very sorry about the stupid thing I did last week. I promise from now on I will never lift anything heavier than 40 lbs. I think that is what my snow tires on rims weigh each. Last week the old Sony Trinitron 27 inch television died. I was sad to see it go since it had given good service for about 15 years. It was one heavy son of a gun. It had to go. And I lifted it and carried it to the kitchen and set it on the kitchen table and in that last second before reaching that table, I felt my back fail. My lower back experienced a severe collapsing failure and I knew I was going to be in for it. After sizing up the back deck and the four stairs down to the path and deciding that was not the way to go, I went and got the old and mostly useful cart. Moved the Sony to the cart. Moved the cart to the side door and out to the side deck and down the old wheel chair ramp that had been built back around 1990 for my late Mom. Summoning super human strength I got the Sony in the front seat of my car.
That was 6 days ago. And I have been in a lot of pain off and on for the last 5 days. I am something of a back pain expert since I first injured my back when I was 18 years of age. That was when I tried to reposition a very large rock, no, it was a boulder, that was in the ground next to our first side porch (now gone) and needed to be moved slightly. No bulldozer being available, I did it and did a number on the lower tranverse ligaments of my back.
Over the years I have reinjured it. Usually a day or two of bed rest has cured it. Last year something new went wrong and I did something to my nerves that presented me with one of the worst years of my life. Not excruciating pain but just enough buzzing irritation to make sleep almost impossible. It took about 8 months to go away. Some physio-therapy helped, but mostly it just took time. I lost about 60 lbs and could not walk any great distance, no more than 100 yards. It was almost impossible to find a comfortable position standing, sitting or lieing down. But I did get better and then I did it to myself with the old, very heavy 27 inch Sony.
This time the nerve, or possibly it is a spasming muscle or muscles, has found a new variation. I can sleep. But when I try to stand up I get knife like stabbing pains in my lower back right side only. Also if I happen to turn the wrong way in bed, more knife work. Once I get upright and walk ten or twelve steps, my back is eased and fine. Sometimes when I sit down in a chair, a throbbing spasm hits my back, like the knife is being pushed in pulled out and pushed in over and over again, but I can usually change my position and ease that after a minute or two.
Young sailors have been stopping by to enlarge their vocabulary.
I was unable to move the 27 inch myself. My sister drove my car to the local dump and a young man there offered to move it out of the car. I hope that in twenty five years he is not writing a short note about how he first injured his back.
The new TV is 20 inch and weighs more than a feather but it is reasonable. A flat screen and is the last tube TV I will ever buy.
So my dear back, please stop knifing me and I promise not to pick up anything heavy from now on. I swear.