Howdy,
Today, August 1st, is an anniversary of sorts: a horrible and terrible anniversary.
No, not a wedding anniversary or anything like that. Those are wonderful. (By the by, Sarah and I are speeding ahead to our 10th this fall!)
The horrible and terrible and painful one is this: on this date one year ago—August 1, 2016—I spent very nearly the whole day in the fetal position, on my right side, on the bathroom floor, clutching the doorjamb between our master bath and closet.
It’s a memorable day.
It was horrible, terrible. So painful.
It is a day memorable for all the wrong reasons.
As I reflect on this day a year ago, I am finding it striking—quite amazing, really—how clear I am on the details. What I am about to write could seem exaggeration or rough details about a painful day—like a fish story with a growing fish-size, especially over time. But this is not the case with this. When I say that I spent the whole day in pain, on the floor, in the fetal position, pressing against the floor on my right side, clutching that doorjamb, wanting, wishing, praying that something, anything, would happen for me, could happen for me, including “Somebody shoot me!” (if not with a needle guiding painkiller, with something), I am not exaggeration, taking/making creative license, or unclear on the facts.
Here’s what happen.
A bad back.
Bad backs are bad.
About a week before, we were in Santa Cruz as a family and to participate in a ride with Jasper and Lizzy (and Nick) at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk I got unto—and into—a kiddie rollercoaster. Not a good idea (and picture Nick Schuller and I crammed into a tiny rollercoaster seat with our kids—Nick and I weren’t sharing a two-seater, but still …). Unfortunately the bad idea wasn’t both Nick and I riding the rollercoaster; the bad idea was me getting on it. I’ve had back issues in the past, and there I was, knees jammed up into my chest and getting jerked to the right after drops, dips, climbs, and whatever else a rollercoaster does, even a kiddie one. It kinda made my hip hurt, as in, I know that wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done as soon as it was over, before it was even over.
I also couldn’t help myself, couldn’t keep myself, from using the diving board into the pool the next day. That hop-step and a bounce, that compression of my vertebrae and weakening discs, wasn’t the best choice for my back after that fateful rollercoaster made for kids. Or at least people under six feet tall weighing further over 200 pounds than they’d like to think.
It was weird how my hip was barking at me a bit. More like a bite. I’d had back issues, but the hip was different.
Then almost a week after the Boardwalk blunder and diving board spine compression (when I need decompression—been through those treatments, which helped and were a real blessing that way that opportunity came about; God is good!) I went to an SF Giants game with a friend. Mike drove and I found myself getting particularly frustrated with the thick Bay Area traffic and congestion at the bridge that extended the trip more than an additional hour—because my hip was starting to hurt, not handling the trip. I was squirming in my seat, shifting for comfort not to be found.
Then the plastic AT&T park chairs. Oh, boy. We had good seats for that game, club level … but I didn’t want to sit. Couldn’t sit after awhile. My hip was killing me, a knife of pain digging around on my right side. In fact, for a spell I stood at the top of our section, leaning against the glass of the club level. Wouldn’t you know that’s when Hunter Pence lined a foul right over my seat to a row behind us. I’m sure I would’ve caught it. (Actually, there’s no way I could be sure of that, but I wanted to exaggerate about something in this post.)
What I can’t remember is the day between the game and August 1st. Maybe there wasn’t one, but 8/1/16 was a Monday and I’m reasonably certain that Mike and I went to a Saturday game. (Saturday traffic was still horrible and terrible, and in my case—and probably others’—painful.)
I can remember 8/1/16.
I got out of bed early. Because of the pain. I took I was going to vomit, so I was stiffly but as swiftly as possible making my way to the toilet for tossing-cookies position. On my way, I saw myself in the bathroom mirror. I was shocked white and sweaty, locked in pain. I had a hard time getting down to the toilet, but you do what you’ve got to do when you’re going to throw up. I dry heaved, bring up on intense pain in my back. I clutched the toilet. That is crazy, and I’ve experienced it before, when you’re throwing out your back throwing up. It’s great, it’s the best, it makes you think: “My life is good.”
You know, I want to write that I left clutching the toilet bowl with a crumble or tumble from kneeling to hurl to laying in the fetal position on the floor, but I wasn’t able to move enough to be smooth enough to even crumble or tumble. In slow, painful agony, true agony (and I’m not looking for sympathy or saying I’ve gone through anything worse than someone else’s pain—there are worse things—but for me, that back pain was bad, the worst I’ve had) I somehow got to the ground, the bathroom floor—I didn’t care—on my back. I made my way to my right side; it was like I needed the pressure of my weight on my hip pointer, like I’ve said, it was weird that it was my hip, but the back and hip combined together to take the pain intensity to a new level for me.
Writhing on my right side, I found the doorjamb and I clutched it, like a release and a stabilizing structure that I could grasp, I guess for my only control in the situation, like biting on a bullet during the digging out of a bullet. Not saying I’ve been through that. Such a wild deal as that also sounds so intense. Speaking of bullet, I would say that we use the phrase, “Somebody please just shoot me,” too lightly, but I have to admit that it ran through my head multiple times on August 1, 2016. I didn’t really want to be shot with a gun (I wouldn’t do that), but I did want to be shot with something, as I mentioned. A shot. Of painkiller. I wanted something to happen. A doctor visit—like them coming to me, because I didn’t know how I’d ever get down the steps, but if I could, I wanted an ambulance ride, or something. I needed something. “Somebody shoot me.” That’s what I remember. Because I lay there, on the bathroom floor, in the fetal position, on my right side (unable really even to get back over to my left if I had wanted to for relief to my right), clutching that doorjamb ALL DAY LONG.
Like into the evening. That’s how long I “crouched” and clutched on the floor. From early morning to evening, on 8/1/16, to wrestle with agony by staying as still as I could between screams.
And that’s what makes today so GREAT. It is a horrible, terrible anniversary of sorts, but it was a wonderful day. Today, I did a workout, a rehab. Today, I feel stronger. Today, was a good day. Today, is an anniversary of a painful, herniated-disc day, an incredibly-memorable day, which made today (a day I’ll likely forget in a year of days—thankfully, in this scenario) a really nice day, a blessed day, and day that I am especially thankful for.
Thank you, Lord, for this day—and the strength to move forward: a year ago, when I didn’t feel any of it, and today, when I remember and am thankful for all that I have.
Amen.
—Billy
Reading. Writing. Living.
Word Count: 158,178 / On Pace: 158,950 / Year’s Goal: 200,000
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