I've been out of commission for the past 5 days. Monday, at lunch, I was bending over to place a glass of orange juice on the coffee table - bending at the hips, no less, not the back - when it happened. Lower back went into spasm. I finally was able to get out of bed today long enough to venture out to the chiropractor, who told me to come back Monday. "You remember what happened last time?" he said, which translated into "I'm not touching you with a 10 foot pole til the spasms are long gone." "Last time", he adjusted me because my back went out and that's when you're supposed to go see your friendly neighbourhood chiropractor (except for regular maintainence adjustments) - the trouble is, my back went into the worst spasms I'd ever experienced. I was stuck, lying in an out-of-the-way room in the office, in excruciating pain from about 8 in the morning to nearly 1 in the afternoon. As a last resort, we called my family doctor (who, at the time, was practicing in an office about 2 blocks away) who came to the rescue with a dose of valium and a muscle relaxer. They loaded me onto an office chair with wheels (still in pain, but loopy from the valium), pushed me out to the car, folded me into the passenger seat, and the chiropractor followed us home. Then, he and Grahams collected the chair (on wheels) from my studio, rolled it out to the car, loaded me into it, wheeled me into the bedroom and tipped me out onto the bed, where I stayed for the next 9 days.
This time, it was the same issue, but I think my many months of healthier eating and frequent visits to the gym have made things a little easier to deal with. Yes, I've been in bed for the past 4 1/2 days, but not in as excruciating pain as before. So, if you've been missing me, here I am. I'll be going back to bed in a bit - I've been ordered to rest my back over the weekend in the hopes that all spasms and inflamation will have gone by Monday, so the chiropractor doesn't have a panic attack when I come through the door!
