TWEAKED, AGAIN!

Okay, this is frickin' ridiculous!

If you have ever suffered from chronic back pain, you know that quite often the craziest little thing can cause it to "go out". I have bent down to tie a shoe or twisted to get out of a car or just sneezed only to feel that familiar twinge that causes expletives to fly out of my mouth. Sometimes it can even be a legitimate reason like playing tennis or bowling but most of the time it is something stupid.

Much of my adult life I've had occasional lower back problems. In my younger days, years would go by before it flared up again. More recently it seems to get tweaked two or three times a year. Most of the time it just takes a few days, lots of ice packs, ibuprofen & several glasses of wine....then I'm good as new.

Well, today has got to be the dumbest thing that has EVER tweaked my back. I'm not even really sure how it all happened. I was sitting in a booth at Taco Bell eating a bean burrito for lunch while I read a book on my Kindle. I was halfway done & leaned forward about six inches to take another bite when I felt a sharp, stabbing pain as my lower back muscles spasmed.

It was all I could do not to gasp loudly & utter "Fuck!" a few times. Since I was in a public place I tried hard not to call attention to the fact that I was in pain & struggling. It was obvious in a matter of minutes that this was not going away anytime soon.  I could barely get out of the booth then ever so slowly made my way across the restaurant to dump my tray. I looked like Tim Conway playing the little old man who could barely walk on the Carol Burnett Show. If you aren't old enough to remember that, look for it on YouTube. It's got to be there.

Back in my car (which was no easy task to maneuver), I popped a couple of ibuprofen before deciding to scrap my plans to run a few errands & just headed home. Thinking about it on my drive home, I couldn't imagine that a simple every day task such as biting a burrito could wreak this much havoc with my back.

What I think happened is this. I was at a doctor's appointment & she was running late. I waited 40 minutes in the waiting room in a chair that wasn't too comfortable. Twice I thought about trying to find a more comfortable chair but didn't do it. In hindsight, I should have changed seats or walked around. Once I was in the exam room, I had another 15 minutes of sitting on the table with no back support before the doctor finally made it in to see me.

My guess is that my back was already a little pissed off at all the extra strain of the morning & the slight forward lean for a bite of burrito put it over the edge. At least I hope that was what happened because if my back will now go out just from eating lunch, I'm screwed.

As I arrived home & very, very slowly made my way from the car into the house, Lou says, "How did it go?" I replied, "Good news & bad news. The good news is that I really like the new doctor. The bad news is that I tweaked my back eating a burrito." He looked quite confused, rightly so, until I explained what happened.

I have spent the afternoon & evening laying on the couch or slowly doing laps around the house. I really hope this will be one of the times that a day or two & I'm back in race. Oddly enough, standing & moving around the kitchen to cook dinner for half an hour seemed to help my comfort level the most. Well, that & the wine therapy.