Hypervigilance
So I bent over on Sunday (hey, you with the dirty mind, I was getting something out of a file), and my back seized up.Some people say their backs "went out." Mine doesn't go anywhere. It's like someone stuck their hands into my lower back and then clenched them really hard. Then I can't stand up straight, and I walk around like I've got something stuck up my butt for a few days. It doesn't hurt much; it's just really stiff.
The first time this happened, in 1995, it felt like a zipper was being zipped up across my back. That time, at least, I was doing something marginally cool: I'd decided that if I could do 75 pounds on the stomach machine, I could do 75 on the back machine.
That is so not true.
Having some minor health problem like this always reminds me, unfortunately, of the weird ways in which my mind works. Within a few seconds, I was imagining all the reasons I could have back problems.
Doctor: Well, I've read the MRI, and you have a spinal tumor. Generally, they're benign, but we'll have to do a spinal tap.
(Cut to me on a metal table, and some white-coated sadistic type sticking a two-foot-long needle into my back.)
The Doctor again: There are two options. We can remove it surgically, or we can try to manage it.
Me: Which do you recommend?
Doctor: People who've had the spinal surgery generally develop mobility problems later in life.
Me: How much later?
Doctor: Five years or so.
Me (a little desperately): What's the other treatment?
Doctor: It involves weekly injections into the tumor for about 6 months. That usually shrinks it to the point that it doesn't interfere with mobility.
(Cut back to the shot of the person with the big needle.)
I don't know if this reaction is genetic or has to do with years of waiting for some big fight to break out between my parents and one of my siblings. It can be amusing.
But right now, when I'm about to go on a diving trip where I have to hoist a 40-pound tank on my back, it's annoying.
posted by Price of Silence @ 10:22 PM
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