Saturday, April 25, 2009

How I Broke My Back And Learned To Let A Bomb Go Off

Thursday, April 14th, 2009. Roughly 3:30PM.

This will seem like some Harvey Pekar-type shit - and maybe, really, I should do matter-of-fact semi-boring comics rather than blogs - but it's a story with enough sad/funny/pathetic life in it that it was worth putting up - kind of like telling the world about losing my virginity to a condom with a hot older chick watching. But here it is:

I am home, as has been the case of late, what with the lack of work I've been subjected to. With me is the Lady Of the House, and her best friend, Alternate Lady Of The House. I'm in my (home) office, working - writing. They're talking, and come to a question I have the answer to. I get up from my chair with the clear intention of providing valuable input that, admittedly, I could have screamed across three rooms, but I decided to deliver the message in person. I'm polite and gallant that way.

Except I don't make it all the way up. When I reach the second-model of the evolutionary chart, caveman-like 45-degree angle (or so it seems), my back locks in, the bottom of it turning all matter into excruciating pain. So I never make it all the way up. And as each step forward takes longer to achieve, my body also gradually fails to rise; two steps in I scream, three steps in I crouch and scream again; fourth step is a knee on the floor, a loud FUCK! and finally there I lay, flat on my stomach, immobile.

The beltway in my pants happens to be right at the junction between my office and the dining room, meaning my torso is in the dining room, and my legs are in my office. It looks silly, but it feels ridiculous. Both Ladies Of The House laugh, as they fail to comprehend the level of pain I'm in.

I can take pain. I've played injured in macho sports like hockey and football. I've walked 45 minutes home from school on a broken foot and ankle at age 9. I've had a broken foot for the past two years. I've had toothaches and tooth nerve pain. I've had regular back pain for the past 15 years, usually for a couple of days at a time, every two or three months. I know pain, and I tolerate it well. But never had I felt this particular level of pain.

I was, for all intents and purposes, paralyzed. I couldn't move my legs without provoking my back to ache, and it was worse with the left leg, which I felt still existed but didn't want to respond to my orders. Worse still, when I tried moving it, be it with my arm or my other leg, the pain was killing me.

So both Ladies, experts at ridiculing others, started making fun of me and my predicament, but even laughing brings pain, which only makes it funnier to them. Soon enough, they are next to me - well, my torso part anyway - rolling on the floor, crying of laughter.

Alternate Lady, being a professional dancer and dance teacher, also often has back injuries and back pain, and tried to help me out by using team stretching techniques, namely on my left leg. But the laughter had brought air into my body, and as soon as she lifted my bent leg up towards my ass, I passed gas. And it was one of those noisy farts, too, right in her face. Of course, First Lady starts cracking up again, so do I (and pain ensues), Alternate Lady drops my left leg in shock and awe - and that hurts even more. And apparently, that level of pain is just fucking hilarious to obdurate women, and the Funny Fest lives onwards.

Fifteen minutes pass by with little to less action action to recount, so Alternate Lady decides to leave and head to her own place. I'll still be on the floor for another hour before I can even attempt to move, when the Lady and I unite our forces and manage to get my ass in bed, where I'll lay for at least another hour without moving so much as a finger.

Throughout the course of the evening, I will attempt bold maneuvers like trying to go to the washroom to take a leak, but the first couple of times I can't even manage to get there at all and have to retreat to bed, while the third time is a semi-charm, one in which when I get there, helped, my penis seems to have stage fright. Just what I fucking need.

My head feels dizzy from the constant pain, and I can't stand upright for more than a few minutes. And on the few chairs I do try to sit on, the pain comes to warn me that it isn't a good idea to stay there. Eventually I find out the living room couch is a relatively comfortable place where I can sit in a tolerable amount of discomfort, with the added bonus of entertainment - TV, cable, DVD player, Playstation 3, Blue-Ray discs... it's where I'll spend the next week, give or take. Sleeping sitting down, in just about the same position for a week, my back is getting better - the meds are helping, gotta love those painkillers - but my ass is starting to hurt and my legs often get numb. But I'm up-to-date on Weeds and saw every movie nominated for this year's Oscars. And I finished my season of NHL 09.

So I got my pop culture done, had an excuse to be a couch potato and to neglect my blog for a week, and even got to a level of intimacy with Alternate Lady that only anal sex could have achieved or matched, but she doesn't believe in that shit anyway.

As Ice Cube said:
All in all, I gotta say, it was a good day

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