Letters from an Anonymous Friend are written by my long time friend and former college roommate who’d rather keep her identity secret. After this post I don’t blame her.
Well, let’s see if this won’t spark some controversy. If it does, you read waaaay too much into things… that and you’ve never had lower back pain.
So, a few weeks ago I joined the girls for Saturday morning boot camp and pulled a muscle in my lower back… or so I thought. Disappointed, I ended up flat back on my yoga mat watching wistfully as my buddies did their thing.
I thank the good Lord our session that day was literally a 2 minute walk to my house because by the time I hobbled in there (10 minutes later) something was definitely wrong. An afternoon on the floor with my feet elevated helped some, but it got to the point where I had to grit my teeth every time I tried to sit up. Forget using the toilet at my convenience, my bladder had to be nigh to bursting to even make it to the loo and sitting… whew! We’re not even gonna go there.
The pain peaked mid-afternoon when trying to stand just to get a pack of cold veggies from the freezer left me on the floor sobbing like a child for a good 10-15 minutes.
Lumbar problems anyone?
Well, thank goodness I had the sense to keep my cell phone nearby (my roomie was out of town for spring break and I figured I’d have to eventually call someone to help haul my sorry lumbar butt to a clinic) because once the blubbering subsided I dialed up a couple who are like my parents-away-from-home and my Pops came right over. God bless him- no lie, because his daughter’s family was in town that weekend and they were at a restaurant in the middle of a good meal.
Pops arrived, I told him the problem and he ended up taking me to the Emergency Room.
Having never ever been inside a hospital for myself since birth, that day I discovered that ER’s scare the crap out of me (too much TV drama, apparently), enough so that I missed half the questions the nurse (who was an angel) and the doctor asked me. At one point I thought hyperventilation and excess tears might have outweighed the shooting back pain.
The doctor asked if I wanted either a shot or some pills to reduce the inflammation. I might have said (or thought) something like, “What the hell, I’m already in enough pain; might as well jab me with a needle.”
So, he told me to hold out my hand. Then he dropped 3 magical pills onto my palm and handed me a glass of water.
If you’ve ever had any experience with these drugs, enough said; well, I’m sort of a drug-virgin (Benadryl is the hard stuff for me!) so all I have to say about my reaction is DAMN.
The shot didn’t hurt so bad, though it burned like Hades afterwards, which made me cry a little (yes, I was a wuss that day).
But then something… magical happened. Back out in the waiting room, I leaned my head on Pops’ shoulder and closed my eyes while the paperwork was processed (or whatever they did). Then a nurse asked me to come back with her.
I stood and nearly fell right over, my legs felt like they were made of rubber and my sense of balance was virtually non-existent. Suddenly, it was the funniest damn thing that the nurse had to help me walk and when the doc asked me whatever it was, I couldn’t stop laughing! At nothing!
Holy stars! I was high! Somewhere in the depths of my narcotic-muddled brain, I knew I was high and that’s why everything came out in uncontrollable giggles instead of tears, but there was no stopping the reaction!!!
Back in the waiting room, Pops told me to stay in my seat while he brought his truck around; the nurse pointed out that we could use a wheel chair if necessary. It wasn’t necessary (darn), but lemme just say that I spent the next two days on the couch in some kind of narcotic-prescription-coma, much of which I don’t really remember.
Lemme also say that my back felt a whooooooole lot better after that and, after a lot of bumping into walls, tripping over my own feet and being unable to type legibly on Facebook (though I swear I was spelling everything correctly at the time), my lovely lumbar region is slowly, but surely healing.
And that is my story of being a 3 Day Druggie.
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