A Learning Experience
Through this unfortunate back episode I've learned a few things which might be helpful to you if you're in a similar situation one day.
Houdini used to put his foot in ice water for long periods of time to sensitize it when he was exposing mediums. His foot became so sensitive that he could feel the slightest movement, which gave him a huge advantage in detecting a medium's tomfoolery. Similarly, my back had so much inflammation and pain that it helped me understand which movements stress it more than others.
The biggest thing I learned is that when leaning over is a no-go, going down on one knee is significantly easier. The injury is too the right side of my back, so I go down on my left knee, retrieve whatever I dropped, and push up with the left leg. It causes minimal pain, when leaning over would lock me up completely. I'm going to keep doing this because it seems like it will put much less stress on my back in a long-term sense.
The second thing I learned is that mattresses genuinely make a huge difference. Our mattress, I've learned, is somewhat soft, and the difference in that and the ultra-firm couch (when pulled down into a bed) is enormous in terms of how stiff I am when I wake up.
The third thing is a
Shakti mat. This is the contemporary equivalent of a bed of nails, only the nails are plastic and don't penetrate the skin. I've written about this before, but the first 2-3 minutes of lying on it cause significant pain and discomfort, and then your body relaxes and goes into a deep flow state for the rest of the time. After I'm on this for 20 minutes, I get up and have almost no pain at all for about a half hour.
My theory is the pain coming from so many individual points on your back/butt shuts down whatever primary pain you're otherwise feeling (in this case, my back). When you're in so much pain for most of the day, having even a little relief makes a huge difference.
Prehistoric Paydays
Every once in a while you can get a big box of PayDay candy bars from Amazon on the cheap. This is great for me because I don't eat chocolate candy anymore (high saturated fat), and this is a way I can get a bit of sweet tooth satisfaction.
Wikipedia says the PayDay was invented in 1932 and marketed as a meal replacement during the Depression because it was dense with peanuts and only cost 5 cents.
Well, that took a dark turn, didn't it?
The thing is, though, I'm sure that Wikipedia article is inaccurate, because the last box of PayDays I received came from the pre-Civil War era. Or the Precambrian era.
I'll usually microwave a PayDay (candy master's trick) for 8 seconds. It melts the caramel just enough to taste even better. Significant upgrade.
When I pulled a bar out of the box and unwrapped it, it was stiff as a board. The stiffest kind of board, like Patagonian rosewood.
It took a few bars, but I've now arrived at the suitable amount of time microwave bars from this box: 19 seconds. That's a whole lotta microwave for something the size of a candy bar.
Maybe this box of Paydays dates from the Roman Empire era. It was unearthed a few months ago from an emperor's tomb and finally made its way into the distribution network.
It's mine now.
Look Who Can Walk
Being unable to take care of yourself is humbling.
C put my socks and shoes on for three days last week because I couldn't. She did everything involving the house and cooking because it was all I could do to get from one room to the other. My back was so locked up I could barely breathe. Basic movements became complex calculations.
I have more empathy now for people who are in so much pain they quit trying. It's very difficult to feel like the tiny incremental improvements from day to day are worth the effort to produce them. The pain makes you dread moving, too. My back muscles were going into spasm about a dozen times a day. The rest of the time, they were on a hair trigger.
I'm better now. Still far from normal, but better. I walked over three miles yesterday (which was more difficult than normally walking ten), and now that I can walk again, I should be able to make more steady progress.
Still, though. Damn.
An Observation
Jessie Diggins is the single toughest athlete of my lifetime.
Necessity, Mother, Invention, etc.
Did I plug in a heating pad with my toes this morning? Why, yes, I did.
I was at the massage therapist yesterday (which is only 300 yards from the house), and when we were done, I came out and saw C waiting for me.
The front desk person knew what I'd gone in for, and he said, "Sometimes patients are given homework to do. Look up 'Shotgun Technique.'"
"It seems a bit early for that," C said.
"I might still recover," I said.
And...Crud
This is going to be brief because anything I do today is brief. Still in tremendous pain and have a massage in an hour that will hopefully help.
With C's help, I've been able to locate the source of the pain as the SI joint, which at least it something to go on. In general, though, it's very bad, and it looks like I'm going to an urgent care in the morning to get some medication, which I'd hoped to avoid (beyond Celebrex, anyway).
Everything is an engineering problem right now in the sense of "engineering" a way to do perfectly normal things (like put on/take off socks) that are now relatively impossible.
The Olympics and an Unfortunate Injury
I've come to really enjoy subscribing to Peacock for one month during the Olympics. It's about $20 for the no-ad version, the interface is clean, the coverage is 100X better than the NBC primetime coverage, and it's easy to choose the events you want to add to your personal list.
A+, so far.
I was watching on Saturday (skiathlon, I think) as I lifted weights and did abdominal exercises, which is my usual exercise routine on one day of the weekend. It all went well, and I was very pleased with myself as I went to get up to start shoulder exercises.
Only I found I couldn't get up.
When I tried, I had a sharp pain in my lower back, and by sharp, I mean agonizing. 10/10 no notes. It took a few minutes for me to get back on the couch.
I knew it was going to be bad, because a lower back problem is always bad.
Since then, my back's been going into spasm 8-12 times a day, painful enough that it makes me shout (a new experience for me). Having to get up at night to go to the bathroom is a real experience in ingenuity.
It hasn't seized up yet today because I'm starting to feel when it's about to happen and shift my position or do something to stop it.
So far, at least.
I've also done a thousand cat-cow stretches and I'm trying to sit as little as possible. It's not great.
Oh yeah, Lindsey Vonn got hurt, too. That was also unfortunate.
A Thought
This is going to sound corny.
One of the things I've always struggled with in my life is the feeling that I never mattered. More precisely, I never did enough to matter.
I should have. I almost did, a few times. But I didn't.
Other than being Eli's father, which always felt different, this feeling has plagued me my entire life.
Today, though, I had a thought.
I was in the locker rooms after swimming. Swimmers always make a mess because they come in wet, so there's always water on the floor near their lockers. I always wipe up the water around my locker after I dry off so someone won't slip.
As I was wiping the floor, I realized something. People who wipe the floors dry and say kind words to people and let others go first genuinely matter because they hold us together. Their kindness keeps us stable just long enough for a decent human being to emerge who can make the world better.
Without the kind people, society would turn into Lord of the Flies, where everyone is a mercenary. In that environment, no one good could ever emerge. We would just keep spiraling down.
I think quite a few of you are like me in this sense. And we do matter.
It's a happy thought. We earned it.
Innovation Through Desperation
I do four sets of exercise three days a week, targeting the back, shoulder, foot, and stomach.
As I've added body parts (phrasing), the exercises take longer and longer. Over an hour now.
I've grown to loathe them.
I've been trying to think of a way to keep going that isn't utter misery, and I finally found a solution. What I do is play NCAA, but sim defense (slow speed, which lets you watch the game like you're watching on TV). A series with two or three first downs will take several minutes, which gives me time to do exercises. Eventually, I work through the entire routine, even though it takes me two games.
It's slower than doing them straight through, but it helps with my sanity.
Also helping with my sanity: it's 31 and sunny today, so it's the first day in almost three weeks where it doesn't feel living in a frozen Russian hellscape.
Big Things
You hear interesting things in gyms, especially in Manhattan.
It took me an hour and a half to get to the gym today (NYC was having a transit meltdown this morning), but I overheard a conversation after I got out of the pool.
Someone's show was opening.
I thought how nice, someone has a little play debuting somewhere just as the guy mentioned "NBC" and "next month."
This was after dressing next to the world record holder in the 60+ one-mile swim a month ago or so. His swimming pace in that race was almost my walking pace.
Sure, most of my day was spent jamming onto trains, avoiding frozen dog poop on the sidewalk, and navigating through snow passes at intersections, but it does feel like big things are happening all around you.
