PAIN

Monday night the phone rang during dinner. I walked into the dark living room to talk. It was just the cable company. I was going to plop down into the large chair. I thought I felt it, and thought I was plopping down over the cushioned armrest into the chair. Instead I fell over the side of the chair and free-fell 2-3 feet onto the ground. My back landed on a little dumbbell, and it about knocked the wind out of me. Amazingly, I survived the fall without much pain.

Wednesday morning after my shower I was putting on my socks, and I felt something in my lower back. Hurt a little, and I walked down the steps slowly. Drove the 40 minutes to work. When I got out of my car I could hardly walk. Had to stop halfway across the lot because of the pain. Took the elevator instead of the steps. Sat at my desk for a couple of hours, then walked to the break room. On the way back I almost collapsed in pain. I needed to sneeze, and that hurt. When I went to stand up, my back started hurting just because it knew I was about to stand up. The drivers side door lock is broken on my car. I was finally going to call a locksmith today, but didn’t want to have to walk out to the parking lot again.

Wednesday afternoon Anna texted that she needed me to pick her up on my way home from work. Had I been going to the game I still would’ve made it down to Buckhead by seven, but it would’ve been a lot more driving. Still hate that missed going to the GT win over Maryland. Had I gone I would’ve slowed everyone down…the walk would’ve been a killer. Since I picked up Anna, we made two stops on the way home. She ran into the library to pick up two books I had reserved.

At home Wednesday night I tried sitting on the sofa (on the heating pad). Later I lay down on the sofa before dinner (burgers, fries, and salad). Since they were watching American Idol and the season premier of Psych, I took my electric blanket upstairs and read on the bed. My phone was charging, so I didn’t even get on the internet. Changing positions was painful, but early this morning when I’d wake up in the middle of the night, moving around wasn’t as bad.

Thursday morning was only marginally less painful than Wednesday. With it being the last day of the month, I needed to come to work. On the drive in to work Thursday morning I was thinking how people say the aches and pains will come on more and more now that I’m old. My left shoulder has been bothering me lately, probably from the weights I’ve been lifting. My knees and hips haven’t been bothering me too much since I stepped up my running this past fall. Sometimes I worry about my hips wearing out, but right now they’re ok. 

Since I hit 50 a few years ago, losing weight has been that much harder. The fad diet here at work is the GM Diet…you should look it up on the internet. I haven’t done it (yet). One day all you eat is fruit. Next day only vegetables. One day only bananas and milk. One day soup. One day meat. Average weight loss in the week of the diet is 15 pounds. Supposed to clean you out, kick start a normal diet. GM would make their executives go on the diet one week per year.

My lower back seems to go out like this about once a year. It had been almost two years since the last time it went out. I’ve been trying to add more sit-ups (crunches, really) into my workout routine this year, though I hadn’t exercised since last week. People seem to think it’s a muscle and not really my back. Working today and tomorrow will be rough, then I can rest up all weekend. Next week hopefully I’ll be somewhat back to normal. That’s the plan, anyway.  

“The Boy That Returned From Heaven” is a good book, a little different than “Heaven is for Real”. I’ll finish the book in a few more days. Yesterday I check out “The Big Miss” – Hank Haney’s book about coaching Tiger Woods. Also The Pillars of the Earth #1 – on 32 CD’s…41 hours. I’m not a huge middle earth kind of guy, so we’ll see how it goes.