The least interesting thing a person can say about themselves is that they have a bad back.

“I have a bad back, did you know that?”

Everyone has a bad back. We’re still evolving, supposedly. Though this is less true now– medicine is starting to get so advanced that we’re freezing our current state. Instead of dying when a faulty gene wrecks our body, we just replace whatever organ it affects with plastic and metal versions. This lets us procreate, pass our faulty gene along, and basically weaken the gene pool. Eventually, newborns will have to have all kinds of procedures done at birth, including acquiring new and artificial genes, just to stay alive. I’m not for or against, just observing what’s happening. At the moment, I’m interested in full back replacement surgery. I’ll take the Indestructible Viking Spine model, please. In chrome if you have it.

I had my nearly obligatory “back thing” two months ago. It was stiff for weeks. It has happened in the past. I’d kick too high without having warmed up enough, or I’d pull too much weight off the ground without stretching enough. Stupid things. And I can always feel it happen, it’s never a next-day surprise. A little electric shock at the base of my spine. A tweak. A little zap of unfamiliar warmth. It’ll feel weird for the rest of that day, and manifest fully after a good sleep, always expected.

But this last one, from two months ago, was different. The stiffness didn’t diminish over weeks, and eventually I started training again, trying to train through it. I woke up last weekend feeling pain radiating down my leg.

It took 20 minutes at the doctor’s office. Vicodin for pain, Flexiril to get the supportive muscle tissue to unclench, my first time having either. Follow-up 4 days later. That was today.

Over the week there has been no improvement and I’m dropping weight like ballast. No appetite. Vicodin has had no effect, despite how prepared I was to become fully addicted to it. I was disppointed that I didn’t experience euphoria, and the doctor was disappointed I hadn’t improved. It took 15 minutes the second time:  Percocet for pain, a steroid called Prednisone for inflammation of the tissue surrounding the nerve that’s being pressed, more Flexiril, and an order for X-ray and MRI. The MRI required approval from my insurance company, forcing me to wait until Monday. The X-Rays, however, happened. She put the images up on the lightboard:

“Mr. Duck, are you in here for lumbar pain?”

“Yes, exactly. Can you see something wrong on my X-Ray?”

“Well, if you look here, this disc is completely compressed. I mean, it’s practically destroyed. I’m surprised you could even walk in here… how long have you had this, I’m confused.”

The pain has been ceaseless and exhausting. When lying down, standing, walking. Sitting is actually impossible, the lower back muscles won’t allow my hips to flex. Last Sunday was the first hard day, and it’s gotten worse, progressively.

But right at this moment it seems that Percocet does help. Or maybe it’s the steroids. Or the second cycle of Flexiril. Or maybe I’m just too tired to hurt any more. My adrenal gland must be empty now. My nerves must be worn out, short circuited.

I once prided myself on hardly ever self-medicating. And now this…

It’s going to be tough for a while. Some are twice a day, one is 3 pills twice a day for 3 days, then 2 pills twice a day for 3 days. One of them is 1-2 every 6 hours as needed, not to exceed 8 in a day. That’s the most serious one– oxycodone:

"Oxycodone is in a class of medications called opiate (narcotic) analgesics. It works by changing the way the brain and nervous system respond to pain."

I’m worried. I need to train or I get down. If I’m not releasing energy, if I don’t drain off testosterone, I start to hate everything I see, everything I hear. I go too far inside myself and think too much about everything. I remember things I’ve tried to forget. I confront things I had previously stepped around. I bury myself in obsessive thoughts about problems everywhere. I start to lose the ability to ignore the things I can’t help fix, and helplessness is my greatest torturer. I experience inner-world violence. Sometimes I want to die.

I don’t know how long this will take to recover from, but I’m worried about a lot of things now. One thing I know for sure: the worry will stop when the hatred takes over, and I don’t know which is worse for me to have inside.