Oh, my aching back!

Okay, here's the story and the current status of my back. One of my Faithful Readers has chastised me for failing to make my previous description of the accident sufficiently humorous, so I'll see what I can do to get us a few laughs out of the whole fiasco. It actually was laughably ridiculous.

So, the Tuesday morning before Christmas, there I am, standing in the shower at my parents' home, doing what one usually does in the shower, namely, showering. Everyone has their own preferred order of business in the shower. Mine is to wash my hair at the end of the shower. I was reaching up into the windowsill to get the shampoo, and suddenly I was falling. It happened so fast that I don't know why it happened. I think pretty much everyone reading this blog knows that I have MS, and my legs get a little flaky once in a while, but I haven't had issues with just randomly falling down without warning. I think my foot just slipped on the wet bottom of the tub.

So, because I was facing the window and I fell backward, I fell out of the tub onto the bathroom floor. It's funny how many thoughts can go through one's head in a split second in a situation like that. My first thought was, "Oh, shoot, I'm bringing the shower curtain down with me, and that's going to result in the shower curtain rod also falling down. How embarrassing." My second thought was, "Oh, shoot, I certainly can't grab the towel rack that's to my right, because that rack came out of the wall last year, and then my dad put it back in the wall, and then I carelessly pulled on the rack just a few hours after he did that and I pulled it out of the wall again, and Dad worked feverishly to firmly anchor it back in the wall (this is all still last year), and since I'm already bringing down the shower curtain and curtain rod as I'm falling right now, it would just be embarrassing for me to also bring down the towel rack again this year." After I got past those first two thoughts, but still before I had hit the ground, my third thought was, "This probably looks ridiculously silly." My fourth and final thought was, "Oh, shoot, this is going to hurt."

All of those thoughts, which took place in about a third of a second, turned out to be correct. The shower curtain and rod did fall down, I did manage to avoid grabbing the towel rack (which wouldn't have prevented my fall in any event), I did look ridiculous, and it did hurt. I smacked my lower back against the side of the tub as I was falling backwards out of the tub. To heighten the drama of the situation, I think I even yelled as I was falling, but no one heard me. They were all upstairs.

After I finally hit the floor, I just stayed there for a second, testing each of my limbs to make sure I hadn't paralyzed anything. (Of course, the shower is running the whole time, and now there's no shower curtain to keep the water in the shower, so water is going all over the bathroom floor.) I got up to put the curtain rod back up and to finish my shower, and that's when I found out that my injury was a little more serious than just a nice bruise. Any motion that involved the use of the muscles in the lower left side of my back caused intense, shooting pains to go through my lower back, sort of like someone had held several needles in a fire and then stabbed me in the back with them. However, I still hadn't finished my shower, and I wasn't wearing any clothes (obviously), so I hung up the curtain rod the best I could, finished washing my hair, and dried myself off the best I could. I'll be darned if I was going to go through all of that hassle and not even finish my shower.

At that point, the pain in my back was so bad that I was starting to go into shock, so I opened the door a crack and called for my lovely wife, Stace. I have no doubt that she immediately dropped whatever she was doing at the moment and rushed to my aid. She helped me get somewhat dressed and helped me to the bed, where I rested until I was past the danger point of fainting.

I spent the next couple of weeks mostly on the couch with a heating pad. I've never felt pain like that before. They say that labor is the worst pain a person can experience, but this was worse. Trust me. I could find positions where it didn't hurt at all, but if I tried to do silly things like tie my shoes, or get into bed, or get in or out of the car, someone would start stabbing those hot needles into my back again.

To make a long story short ("Too late!" screams the anguished listener), I saw a couple of doctors in Utah. They both assured me that my symptoms indicated a heckuva bruise rather than a herniated disc, so they gave me some addictive narcotics and told me to give it some time. It wasn't getting better by the time I flew to Minnesota a couple of weeks later, so I saw my doctor there. He gave me some more addictive narcotics but also had me get an MRI just to be sure. To my surprise, the MRI did show a slightly herniated disc. (It also showed degenerative disc disease, for which I can thank my mom's side of the family. Those Rogers genes are programmed to start destroying one's back starting at about age 15.)

To make a really long story short (uh, well, never mind), my back finally started to improve on its own. Now that I'm in Switzerland, I may go to physical therapy to strengthen the muscles and to make sure that disc doesn't start acting up again. It still hurts sometimes, but I can sleep now without waking up to change positions. I'm not sure how much of ski season I'll be able to salvage. We'll see. I don't want to push anything yet.

Like other illnesses or injuries, this one has given me an appreciation for simple things like being able to get into a car without screaming and being able to roll over in bed without taking ten minutes to figure out the best way to do it without invoking the needle-stabbers.

Hmmm. I don't know what the topic of my next post will be, but whatever it is, it'll be much shorter than the last two.