My Back: A Day in the Life

I'm not this old, but I feel this old.

 I.

My day starts with pain.

I wake up and can already feel the tightness in my lower back, the stiffness in my joints, the aching arthritis pulsating through my spine. The pain varies depending on what position I was in when I fell asleep, but it’s always there waiting for me, as dependable as a crowing rooster in the morning.

Like any human with responsibilities, my next move is to sit up, which involves activating all the joints and muscles that already hurt.

I can do some stretches that feel good in the moment, but nothing seems to lessen the pain overall.

II.

There are little things that most people, people without chronic back pain, never think about that bother me.

For example, walking into work I notice that my shoelaces have come untied. A normal person would bend over to tie them but that hurts too much. So I just keep walking until I can find a place to sit down.

People, in their good intentions, love to point out when your shoelaces are untied. I don’t like having to explain that the arthritis in my back, coupled with my scoliosis, makes bending over difficult, so I usually just smile and say something like “Thank you,” as I continue walking.

I grab my cup from my office and head to the water cooler. At 6’4”, I’m a tall dude. The cooler’s spigot, however, is designed for normal-sized people. It comes up to my thigh. So to fill my cup, I have to sort of half bend over while operating the spigot. This can be more painful than bending over to tie my shoes, but this is how I get my water.

III.

My lunch break starts. I can go to the gym and lift some weights, which sometimes feels great and sometimes pulls a muscle in my lower back and I have to miss work for three days.

Today I go for a walk. I’m so fortunate to have this beautiful campus all around me. There is something about being outdoors, in nature, that I find so relaxing. I see a hawk's nest way up in a towering pine tree. I see squirrels running up a giant oak tree. I can hear birds chirping. The wind whipping across my face is odorless and yet somehow smells familiar. It smells like spring, like baseball games, like family reunions at a park, like youth.

I get back to my office refreshed, energized. But being on my feet for that long means that my back hurts. I have ibuprofen in my desk, but I have to weigh the tradeoff of pain now versus liver damage later. 

I choose pain now and disregard the ibuprofen.

IV.

I get home, exhausted. My youngest wants me to pick her up but I don’t have the stamina. Back pain isn’t just about the pain, it’s about the way it saps your energy. 

I’m tired. All. Of. The. Time. 

But I also hate using that as an excuse. So I bend down, grunt, and pick her up. For a moment, I’m happy. We both are.

I flop down on my couch, which is comfortable. But that just means it will be that much harder to get up.

As is inevitable, one of my four kids does something that makes one of the other three kids cry. I yell because I don’t want to get up to separate them.

Yelling doesn’t work.

I still don’t want to get up so I yell louder. Now another kid is crying because I yelled too loud so now I have to get up to comfort him. I’m angry because my back hurts, I’m resentful because my kids made me get up, I’m disappointed in myself for making my kid cry, and I’m despondent because I can’t find a way out of this.

V.

My wife cooks us a marvelous dinner. I feed some mush to the twins in their high chair, which means I have to lean forward in my chair to get in Feeding Position, which means the pain meter in my back is cranked up by the time I’m done feeding them.

After dinner, I begin to do the dishes. Being on my feet isn’t so bad, but sinks, much like water coolers, are designed for normal-sized people. So I’m bending over for 20 straight minutes and now I'm staring at the medicine cabinet and once again weighing the tradeoff of pain now versus liver damage later.

After the dishes are done I look outside the window into our backyard. During this time of year, the sun sets just after dinner. The weather is perfect. We only get a handful of days per year like this. I want to walk my dog so I can bask in this perfection, clear my mind, and watch a beautiful sunset over the mountains behind my house.

But that means putting off helping out with bedtime and further aggravating my back during the walk. So instead I help put the kids to bed, lay down on an ice pack, and watch TV until it’s time for bed so I can wake up tomorrow and do it all over again.