My Bad Back

I had a music teacher in middle school - a kindly woman named Mrs. Taylor - who always told me to sit up straight.  "Stop slouching, David!"  She said that if I didn't, I would have a sore back when I got older.  If my back was in good shape today, I might have forgotten Mrs. Taylor long ago, especially given my lack of musical talent.

The first time I can ever really recall being conscious of my back as a body part was when I hurt it in a fall at the age of 14.   This was no ordinary tumble.  I can't recall why we decided to do it, but like much that a teenager does the reason was two-fold:  we had nothing better to do (motive) and we had the latitude to do it (opportunity).

I was a sophomore in high school and paling around with two older kids, a junior and senior couple, and the junior's freshman sister.  One night when I told my mom we were going to see Body Double at the now defunct College Theater, we instead decided to climb onto the roof of our high school, Edwin O. Smith School.  The night was cloudy and dark; there was little to illuminate our trespass.  If memory serves, it was Preston who knew the way.  We went around the side of the building where an emergency exit formed a good U shaped space between the main building and the math wing.  By using the corner of the building and the window mullions we were able to scale the 14 feet to the vast black tarred roof.  There was nothing to do up there, no mischief in which to engage, but the illicit nature of the act alone was exhilarating.  The four of us ventured out in separate directions to explore, each of us given to our own migratory predilections.

I walked atop the inky expanse and looked out from my lofty vantage at the front of the school, the movie theater across the street, and the UConn campus in the distance.  Temporarily entranced by the blackness of the roof and sky and the stillness of the night, I failed to perceive that the roof upon which I strode was nearing its end.  I walked on; my left foot landed firmly on the roof, but my right foot failed to find any surface whatsoever.  I literally walked right off the roof.  It happened so fast - and so long ago - that I can't say exactly what I felt when my consciousness absorbed the fact that I was falling off the roof of my school.  I know this:  as my right foot strode off the roof, my body twisted as I fell.  I dropped the dozen or so feet quickly like a stone and landed squarely on my back upon the firm autumn grass - my head mere inches from the asphalt foundation that ran along the base perimeter of the building.  I couldn't breathe, but I didn't know why.  Was I dying?  I must have made some sound of distress as I fell because it wasn't long before Preston made his way down the same way we'd climbed up, ran alongside the opposite side of the math wing and up the other side to where I lay supine and motionless.

Preston and I ascertained that I'd simply knocked the wind out of me (all of it!), but other than a sore foot, I seemed okay - no blood and no broken bones as far as we could tell.  Ashley and Nanny came upon us soon after.  Preston and I were so grateful and astounded that I seemed to be relatively uninjured that by the time the girls arrived, he and I were nearly laughing with relief.  The girls took this as a sign that we'd staged the whole event and Nanny pushed me to the ground in anger for having scared her so.  We soon convinced her that, no, it was as it appeared, I simply walked off the roof.

My back was sore for several weeks, but after that, the pain subsided.  My mother was none the wiser and I had a good story to share.  I'm not Irish, but I sure was lucky.  I thought that would be the last I heard of my back; I didn't give much thought to it for the next three years.  By then I was a freshman oarsman on the UMass Crew Club's Novice Team.  I was a burgeoning 18 year-old athlete, but not having played competitive sports before, my body had as yet little preparation for the stress I'd be applying to my slight frame and weak spine.  Core strength was not yet in vogue; sit-ups - poorly performed sit-ups - and back extensions were the entire scope of my abdominal and spinal training.  The toll of an infirm upper body trying to keep pace with my comparatively stronger legs eventually caught up to my lower back.  That winter I felt an especially acute ache and strain that wasn't dissipating.  I eventually sought treatment at UMass Health Services and was referred to physical therapy where I received ultrasound treatment, electric stimulation therapy, and massage (treatments I'd receive scores of times in the years ahead).  When my back felt somewhat better the treatments ended. I was given stretches and strengthening exercises to do and was prescribed a specific position in which to sleep (basically fetal on my side with a pillow between my knees).

As my crew career proceeded I had occasional bouts of pain in my lower back - some more severe than others.  There were several times I was forced to sit out practice for days or weeks - especially over the winters when our workouts focused more on weight training.  But season by season, I prevailed.  I learned to cope with a base level of pain - it became normal for me.  It just was.  After college - especially during the numerous spans of time when I was less active, my back would flair up and occasionally leave me laid up.  Sitting in almost any chair for more than twenty minutes proved a challenge.  I took Tylenol and ibuprofen, lots and lots of ibuprofen; I learned more exercises and stretches.  Inevitably though when my back felt better I'd forego my 'supermans' and leg lifts.  And just as inevitably I'd re-injure my back.   Over the years, I've seen chiropractors, massage therapists, and acupuncturists.  I've done yoga, pilates, and swum countless laps in the pool.  Like a comet with an unpredictable, but certain orbit, severe back pain comes and goes.  All the while though there is a residual pain that's nearly constant.

In late October, early November of 2000 I went on a long journey.  I was living in Amsterdam and flew to Malta for a week long meeting - which was also a week full of late nights and little sleep.  From there I flew- coach - from Malta to London and from London to San Francisco for the wedding of a high school friend.  After the weeks of late nights, little sleep, and long, uncomfortable travel, I sought refuge at my father's duplex unit in Marin County.  I arrived just a day or two before the historic 2000 Presidential Election between Gore and Dubya.  I stayed awake as late as I could that night, drifting to sleep to Tim Russert's famous, "Florida, Florida, Florida" refrain.  When I awoke the next day, still unsure as to who our President-elect was, I tried to rise from my makeshift couch cushion bed.  Immediately I froze in the sharpest, most debilitating back pain I'd ever experienced.  The pain was paralyzing.  I couldn't shift into any position without searing agony.  I spent the rest of my paternal visit supine.  I mustered all my strength and courage, to say nothing of the hundreds of milligrams of ibuprofen coursing through my body, to board a flight home.  The pain acted like a clarion call: Take care of your back!  And I did.  For a time.

The thing about a tricky back is that when it's fine it has a way of lulling you into complacency.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.  I knew this:  when I was exercising regularly, my back felt better and hurt less.  Marrying a physical therapist helped, too.  (Though when I took her advice some years back and saw a back expert, had x-rays and an MRI taken, I was deeply saddened to hear the pronouncement that I had the back of a man twenty years my senior.)  The long and the short of it is that I have arthritis far more advanced than a man my age ought to - degenerative joint disease (DJD), also known as Osteoarthritis in my spine - commonly known as a bad back.  I was struck just now reading this from the DJD Wikipedia link: "it commonly arises from trauma."  Perhaps I wasn't as lucky as I thought with that school roof fall after all?

Lately and up until recently my back had been feeling great.  I've been running a lot, even finished a marathon this past fall.  Pain that used to be referred from my back down the front of my legs was a sensation from long ago.  But as sure as Halley's Comet returns, just days before this past Christmas, I was bending over and turning slightly when I felt The Twinge.  I didn't realize at that moment how badly I'd tweaked it, only that I had. For two days I managed with stiffness and general discomfort, but by Christmas Eve, I was an invalid, confined to my bed, barely able to move, let alone attend family festivities.  On Christmas morning, I drove myself to the doctor while my family waited to open presents.  Max got a toy truck; Linda got theater tickets; I got a shot of Toradol, two doses of Amrix, and a prescription for Vicodin.

I am feeling better, finally able to sit at the computer for more than a few minutes.  In a few more days I'll start running again.  I am sure that I'll do some core strengthening work.  In a month I'll scarcely remember how bad it was (my brain is funny like that).  I'll have that low level pain that's always there, my life long and less than amiable companion.  Long car rides will always be tough and as I age, it's not likely to improve.  I don't share this to engender sympathy.  If you don't have a bad back you either will or will have some other cross to bear.  I share it because whether it's a back, a disease, trauma - emotional or otherwise, we all have something to endure.  And if you don't, sure as shit you will.  How you choose to process your pain is what distinguishes suffering from perseverance.

My bad back is my ever present shadow.  We met that fateful autumn night some 26 years ago when I walked off that roof and we've been quite close ever since. Though not always visible to the casual observer, my bad back is as much a part of my identity as my gangly height and my goofy sense of humor.  Sentimentality aside, I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a healthy back today.