Back and forth

It's not been a great year for my spine.

It's been a bit of a dark path, with there's no real end in sight.

From discovering that my weird left hip/glute/hamstring issues actually stem from a spinal injury, to making said injury WAY WORSE at the beginning of May, through some careful recovery and return to running, it's been a lot to manage. 

I've done some things to help strengthen my core (that also happen to be a super fun challenge), and have generally tried to keep my back as healthy and happy as I can.

That's why I was doing some yoga last Tuesday night, after doing some more headstand and arm balance practice - just to try to keep everything mobile. Unfortunately, it seemed my back didn't like the flexion of plow pose - ironically described by that link as "good for backache". Yeah, apparently it's good for GIVING me a backache, right in time for a day off!

Fortunately, despite waking up sore on Canada Day, I was still able to go trail running and paddleboarding - I actually felt better after the run than I had before, and while I was still a little uncomfortable on Thursday it seemed to be resolving.

Definitely feeling better!

Friday was a rough day. My back was hurting again, somehow worse than Thursday - I attributed this to not having done a strength workout in the morning before work, then sitting all day. I also had a ton of stress and frustration at the office, and was late getting home. The only thing that had gone ok was my lunch break: coffee with Tanker, then walking back to my office, which helped loosen up my back a bit. When we finally got home, after stiffening up in the car, I decided I'd do some more yoga to try to sort myself out, and maybe a headstand or two - I'd taken Thursday off from balance work to help my back heal.

I got down into a squat to start mobilizing my hips, then moved into crow pose - it was encouraging that I could balance a little better, though still not for very long. I did a bit of eight angle pose prep work (I'm not strong enough to do the pose itself), then decided that I'd try to stretch my adductors out a bit before attempting any headstands; they had felt a little stiff after running Thursday night. I got into cobbler pose, which that link states has the benefit of decompressing the spine.

I pulled my feet - soles together - toward me, pushed my knees down, leaned forward...and almost passed out when pain EXPLODED in the back of my left hip. 

This was bad. This actually felt worse than when I'd blown my back (in the same place) reefing on a lug nut at the beginning of May. It took me something like 5 minutes of whimpering and grimacing in utter agony to lay back, discover that was even more painful than sitting on the floor, then make 2 separate attempts (one in each direction) to turn over onto my belly.

Tanker was in the shower, so he missed all the fun.
(Yes, I was doing all this in my underoos)

From flat on my face, I tried to get my hands under my shoulders and press myself up, but when I tried my back screamed in protest - it felt like all of the core musculature that I've spent so much time and effort building over more than a decade had been rendered completely useless. I couldn't keep my spine supported, and it was dazzlingly painful when anything other than perfectly aligned.

I lay there, wondering if Tank would end up finding me face down on the floor in my underwear, trying not to cry from the pain and sheer helplessness. Somehow I managed to try again to push myself up, only to sink back down again. It took me at least 4 tries before I was able to gingerly and painfully come up to all fours, then - with an animalistic cry of pain - wrench myself up to my feet.

Problem, though: flexing, extending, or bending my back in any way was still almost painful enough to make me pass out. I stood there in the livingroom trying to keep my shoulders stacked perfectly over my hips, still whimpering and hyperventilating. That's how Tank found me when he got out of the shower.

I tried taking a single dose of naproxen to see if it would "aleve-iate" (#sorrynotsorry) any of the pain, but it didn't seem to have any effect. We tried going for a short, painful walk around the block to see if I could literally walk it off, but it was stubbornly horrible. I ended up going to bed almost as soon as we got back, having no desire to eat dinner; I just wanted not to hurt. Trying to brush my teeth was awful; I had to brace myself with my hand on the counter, and even with that I whimpered when I tried to lean forward at all to spit toothpaste into the sink. Fortunately, laying in bed - once I finally worked my way there - took the pressure off, and I was mostly comfortable as long as I didn't try to move, or especially turn over.

That was a whole lot of suck, so here's a picture of a kitten in a sunbeam licking his toes.

Saturday morning rolled around, and I wasn't really doing much better. I could only "walk" by hobbling around painfully, looking for all the world like I was not-so-cleverly trying to conceal a broomstick. We went down to the farmers' market - only its second weekend of operating since the pandemic began - and it felt just awful. I managed to eat a single sausage and drank half a cup of coffee, but my stomach was still too knotted with pain to have a proper meal. I ended up texting my amazing RMT, who suggested I go to the hospital...but I really did not want to go to the Coronavirus Hotel. However, the City of Cambridge had just opened something else with the lifting of pandemic restrictions, and I had high hopes that it might help..

Even if just to relieve some of the searing heat - this weather is RIDICULOUS

I used the steps to get in, and carefully wandered from the shallow end down toward the deeper reaches. Once the water was up to my ribs I tried a bit of breaststroke, and my back felt absolutely fine for the first time since Friday night. I tried freestyle, kicking on my back, and even got super brave and tried a bit of (absolutely atrocious) butterfly. Everything was FINE - the antigravity effect of the water was saving me, though flip turns were still a bit uncomfortable.

RELIEF

The positive effects of the water stayed with me even when I had to climb out of the pool (using the ladder, very carefully) once our hour-long session was up - I could walk normally and comfortably for the first time, and my appetite came ROARING back. Once we'd gone home and I'd shoved some calories in my face, we went out for about a 3km walk. It felt like a bit much by the end, and I was aching a little, but could get some relief by sitting down for a minute or two. Unfortunately, sitting would make it stiffen back up again, and I'd be hobbling again for the first few steps I'd take when I stood up. I was able to use my core muscles to support my torso by this point, but leaning forward was still quite painful, and I'd have to put my hand down on my knee to brace while I squatted down if I had to pick up anything off the floor. 

Oddly enough, though, I was still able to go pick berries off our enormous patch of raspberry bushes that suddenly appeared in the backyard. If that sounds like an innocuous activity, let me explain that reaching the berries toward the back corner requires climbing part of the fence, then balancing on top of some very rickety sawhorses while bending and reaching.

Photo from Friday (before my back went pop), but I was doing basically the same thing Saturday

Slow, deliberate movement actually seemed to help loosen things up. So, berry picking turns out to be a form of therapy. Who knew?

As well as giving me enough additional raspberries to make a delicious crisp for dessert, with leftovers for brunch & dessert the next day

Sunday morning was a bit better yet - I could turn over in bed with much less pain, and getting out of bed was a little easier. This would be my "let's start trying stuff to see what works" day, and it turned out to be quite successful. We had brunch, got our grocery shopping done, then enacted our plan.

Phase 1: I did an upper body strength workout at home, with pull ups in multiple variations on my rock rings. Hanging from my arms helped decompress things a bit, and my back felt good afterward.

Phase 2:

MOAR HYDROTHERAPY

I got a little more of an actual swim workout in than the day before, and flip turns were more comfortable. Score!

Phase 3:

Straight from the pool, still in our wet bathing suits

We drove straight over to a trailhead near the pool, and went for a long wander. Why? There was a silly Garmin badge for a 3 mile walk that had to be done between July 3rd and July 5th.

Sweet digital bling!

Once again, being on my feet for almost an hour and a half (our wander ended up being 5.75km) felt like a bit much, so I needed to sit down for a minute. It was getting easier to make my way into and out of the car, which was a good thing, but I still couldn't bend forward or straighten my leg out in front of me.

I could, however, swing a leg over..

BRAAAAAAAP

Not going to tell you that riding my motorcycle was super comfortable - pulling my legs up off the ground to get my feet on the floorboards when taking off from a stop was particularly nasty - but it was fun, and after we ate our awesome dairy-free ice cream (because THE BEST rides are for ice cream!) I did some back extension exercises that help quite a bit to loosen things up in my back. Did I look like an idiot doing them on the grass beside the riverwalk? Probably. Do I look like I care? 100% NOPE.

Back to work on Monday, with two new challenges: the first was driving, and that SUCKED. Having to straighten my left leg out in front of me while seated to use the clutch pedal was NO FREAKIN' BUENO, but I only had to drive a couple of minutes from Tank's warehouse to my office in the morning, then back again in the afternoon...to my next challenge.

Yep.

Oddly enough, running doesn't seem to bother my back. I did a successful 5k lunch run on Monday afternoon, and then another on Tuesday in the searing heat. The latter was much more satisfying, as I was working from home that day and managed to snag one of the last 3 spots in the 5:30pm-6:30pm swim at the outdoor pool. So, I loaded my flip flops, goggle, and a towel into a running pack, filled 2 bottles with water, and ran to the heckin' pool!

The absolute best way to run on a scorcher of a day.

I've got back to some careful strength training workouts as well, continued to run every day this week (except today, since it's my day off training), done mobility work in the evenings, and used my inversion table each day since Saturday...mostly with Tanker standing by to help, as he actually had to carefully flip me back, and then slowly ease me back up for the first couple of days. I've seen a ton of improvement - today I could drive nearly pain-free, and I can walk almost totally normally when standing up from a long spell at my desk. I am moving fairly freely, and grateful that my years of core work are paying off by allowing me to recover from this more quickly than anyone could reasonably have expected.

I'm not 100% back, but I'm getting there...which is a damn good thing, because we're leaving for a camping trip on Sunday! We booked it last month, once we found out Sepaq parks were opening up, and we have a ton of fun stuff planned...including one thing that would be a challenge even if I was 100% healthy, that I optimistically booked on Monday of this week when we discovered it had opened effective July 4th.

I won't go into details right now, but you'll hear all about it in a couple of weeks when we return. For now, I'M ON FREAKIN' VACATION!

The mountains are calling, and I must go.

See y'all later - time to GO FORTH!