Baby got back trouble

      Everyone has back troubles. If you don’t believe me, just quietly say, "My back is hurting me." Immediately a crowd will gather and fight among themselves to be the first to say, "Oh, that happened to me, but I was really in pain. I was totally incapable of movement, and a team of nurses had to feed me for four months using a block and tackle hoist, and a specialist was going to operate, but I went to a chiropractor who popped my back, and then I was as good as new, other than spells of blinding pain."
      Occasionally you will hear a variation in which the back troubles happened to their aunt or uncle who had a spinal operation and is now either in a vegetable state or died horribly on the table because the doctor got a phone call on his cell phone and didn't clamp off a major artery, and then of course they lost the body and had to bury an empty coffin, but that is another story.
      Don’t you just hate people like that who complain about their petty problems? I mean, you have a real back problem and they're basically talking about just a twinge, more like a hangnail, really nothing to complain about compared to, for instance, my back problems. 'Cause I had real back troubles. I'm talking about flat on my back, agony shooting throughout my whole body, arms and legs flailing like some sort of huge, whiny turtle.
      I hurt my back the first of May while rushing into the street to save an elderly lady who was about to be hit by a bus. When I picked her up, I felt something give in my spine. Luckily I made it to the curb just before my back gave out. The lady suffered a heart attack, but fortunately landed near me so that I was able to give her CPR until the ambulance arrived which was driven by a brand new EMT so I had to give him directions on how to get the hospital by the fastest route and thus saved her life twice. I am in her will now.
      Oh, all right, I hurt my back just by bending over to pick up my shoe. That's right. I bent over and heard something in my back go crack. Are you satisfied? Nothing exciting; just years of back neglect and lack of exercise. A joint in my back decided that it was tired of being overworked and went on strike.
      It wasn't much fun. That is an understatement along the lines of "Jerry Springer is a bit annoying."
      First was a week and half of bed rest, popping powerful pain pills like candy, and then some physical therapy (torture) and then some exercises (more torture but at least at home so that I could weep freely instead of pretending to be brave). Then a wheelchair, walker for a couple of weeks and finally a cane. Whee!
      I rushed past one of the hardest aspects of this: that week and half of bed rest. I take enforced rest somewhat badly. Of course, I am known for my cheerful, long-suffering disposition -- shut up -- and thus I endure pain stoically, particularly if you define stoic as loud complaining mixed with spats of irrational anger.
      People told me that a week of bed rest sounded wonderful, but they stopped saying that after I strangled a couple of them. Bed rest is good if you choose it instead of having it chosen for you. I was bored, bored, bored. I couldn't watch TV since I couldn't raise my head and had never had the foresight to install a television on my ceiling which, by the way, has 123,084 bumps on it.
      I read 10 books and twice that many magazines. I stopped when my eyes began to burn. I repeatedly called everyone I could think of until they began to avoid my calls. I had one wrong number beg me to hang up. I even talked to telemarketers just to have someone to talk to, and let me tell you, after you've talked to them for an hour and half and still don't buy anything, they get surly.
      Anyway, I got better. It was a big deal when I was able to tie my shoes and not faint. I'm continuing to lose weight, and I'm doing the stretching exercises for my back regularly. The next time back problems come up as a topic of conversation, it is my firm intention to have nothing to say.