Back pain, part deux

I am really this ripped.

For those of you who read my not-family blog, you may remember I did something to my back last February and spent a couple days in some serious pain before recovering.

Thankfully, after that first 48 hours I was fine. I even got back to playing basketball after a couple months and managed to avoid re-injuring the back. I stopped worrying about it and even kinda forgot I'd hurt myself.

Then came Sunday. About 20 minutes before we had to leave for church, I was crouched down, looking through a pile of clothes on our bedroom floor for my white shirt. I couldn't find it, so I was twisting left and right when suddenly, WHAM. Intense, intense back pain in the exact same spot as back in February.

Immediately my first thought was to get on the ground. So I awkwardly/quickly laid on my back between our bed and a wall. It was tight space, but big enough for me to fit in, and I wasn't feeling picky. My back was spasming every five seconds on so, and they were bad. Still, I believed if I stayed put for an hour or so, I'd recover to the point that I could walk again.

My back did calm down after about 15 minutes... at this point there was a constant pain, but my back wasn't spasming. Around 45 minutes into my quality time with the carpet, I was reaching for my iTouch and somehow this triggered another round of serious back spasms. And this time, they weren't going away. It was hard to keep track of time, but these spasms came every 5-10 seconds for around 90 minutes to two hours.

Mandi had called Community Care a few times asking for their advice, and it was always to take Ibuprofen and come in as soon as I could. The problem was, I was in no position to move, let alone get into a car.

Finally I went into shock due to the constant, debilitating pain. I started hyperventilating and my feet and hands started tingling and becoming cold. Mandi called Community Care one more time, and they told her to call 911. About three minutes later, the EMT's arrived and started checking me out. Unfortunately, all four of them had to cram into our room and attempt to check my blood pressure and stuff while I was wedged in the small space I was in. I told them if I'd known they were coming I would have dragged myself into the hallway right at the first in order to make their jobs easier.

They gave me an IV and started me on Toradal for the pain, but it didn't do a whole lot. Finally they gave me the choice of going to the hospital or just waiting it out. I realized I wouldn't get any drugs unless I got checked out by a doctor, and, at that point, I wasn't seeing a doctor without getting a ride in an ambulance. They got me onto a gurney and took me to Madison Memorial Hospital in Rexburg.

Long story short, the doctor there ordered some x-rays, declared nothing appeared to be wrong, and without a $1200 MRI, he couldn't really diagnose the exact injury. He prescribed Loritab and Flexerol and told me to keep taking Ibuprofen. My back had calmed down pretty well by then, so I was able to get into our car and Mandi drove me home.

The next five days were pretty terrible. Constant pain, mitigated a bit by the drugs I was taking every four hours. I skipped classes on Monday, but seeing as to how it was the last week of the semester, I decided I'd better get back on campus Tuesday. I did, and attended all of my classes. Sitting felt better than standing, but it still aggravated my injury.

On Wednesday I woke up and discovered I couldn't stand straight. Thursday I'd lost even more upright ability, so I went to BYU-I's student health center to get checked out. The doctor there told me the same story as the one at the hospital: since I wasn't experiencing any symptoms that would indicate I had a spinal injury, he didn't recommend an MRI, but told me he could get me into physical therapy. I was pretty desperate to try anything that would get me back to normal, so I jumped at the chance.

He was able to get me an appointment at Rexburg Rehabilitation that very afternoon, and I arrived there with my old-man hunch at 2. The owner, Paul Dye, got started on me right away. He had me do a variety of movements and report the pain level. After a few of those, he hooked my back up to a electro-heat-treatment thing and let it run for ten minutes. While it felt nice, I didn't experience any relief from the pain. After an hour-and-a-half of different treatments, Dye told me he was pretty sure I had an acutely herniated disc in my back. He was confident that with treatment, it could be resolved without surgery. That was good news.

I went back the next day without having experienced any improvement in my back. More work was done, new techniques were tried, and I went home. That night was graduation, and as I'd spent the whole morning in classes, I hadn't been able to spend any time flat on my back other than the hour I was at Rexburg Rehabilitation. This added up to some major pain during the ceremony. I didn't march with the rest of the graduates, but instead showed up at the Hart building early and hung out in a seat reserved for the faculty. As the rest of the students marched in, I slipped into the line and limped my way to my seat. Two hours later, I was experiencing severe pain in my back and upper thighs. It was not a good time.

Thankfully, convocation was shorter, but I was still approaching the limits of my pain threshold. Almost as soon after I'd zombie-walked (a phrase coined by my little brother Josh) and gotten my diploma (holder; the actual diploma is mailed as soon as the school is assured you've passed all of your classes), I hobbled to the parking lot and Mandi drove me home. Once there, I changed from terrible uncomfortable slacks into a much more comfortable pair of sweatpants and got on our living room floor.

My family was up from West Jordan, and Mandi's family made the trip from Idaho Falls. I accepted congratulations from family as gracefully as I could from my spot next to the entertainment center.

After they'd all left, I stayed on the floor, constantly trying to find a position that would allow me some relief from the pain. Around 11, I discovered one: on my back, left leg bent at the knee and spread to the left a bit, and right leg straight. Happy to be free from the vaguely inconvenient back trouble, I stayed like that for 15 minutes, until my leg got tired and I had to move.

To my amazement, I discovered I was just about pain-free. Movements that had previously sent my back into spasms were no problem. I could stand straight. I could even walk upright. The pain had subsided to a smaller area on my back and was much more manageable. This morning I felt the same.

So go figure. Apparently I'd found some ancient Chinese back-fixing position by accident. I don't think it was a herniated disc, because those don't resolve themselves so quickly, right?

Anyway, that's where I am. I still spent most of today on my back, but I feel really good, and what little pain remains is going away.

Back trouble is weird, man.