I just realized I did not share the final chapter in my herniated disc tale. I was successful in treating it without the 50/50 chance of being crippled for life that AMA treatments offered. As far as I can tell, my back is 100% of what it would have been if I’d never injured it. Here’s the tale I told at Ted Dunlap .net last summer.
It has been weeks since I had any back pain or sciatica symptoms. After just over a year of those two severely limiting my mobility and abilities, this is very good news indeed. Chief among the good parts is feeling healthy, strong and able to do whatever I want to get done. Way down the list, but still there is the validation of my choices in treatments.
The links that follow here are some of the milestones I blogged about in the 13 months I spent from initial overdoing-it injury to the point I felt healthy and ready to report to work. I am compiling and posting this as a reminder to self – for reasons that will become clear shortly.
July 6, 2013 back off – Describing my back injury of two weeks prior – just starting to back off the off the strong, steady, alternating doses of Ibuprophen, Acetametophin and ice packs. With great optimism I talk about the few weeks between me and full recovery.
August 21, 2013 Rx – phase III – A while into the ‘just be very careful, rest often and don’t lift anything’ phase I found the back pain shifting and becoming increasingly problematic. Here I discovered a massage therapist who helped keep this new, ugly direction in check.
September 4, 2013 monkey still on my back – Starting to feel improved, I actually began following SOME of the advice my AMA surgeon friend gave me. Sit-ups seemed a good idea so I did them until I finally set myself back A LOT.
October 22, 2013 * winners * – A post about trading some beef for cut, delivered firewood … since my back injury won’t let me lift a chainsaw or logs.
October 31, 2013 the good doctor is in – A recommendation led me to Dr. Daniel Wolf, DC, who is in that unfortunately rare category of doctors who really listens, hears and responds appropriate to what his customers tell him. He definitely helped straighten me out and gave ooodles of good advice – all at a wonderfully affordable price.
May 24, 2014 back off – Horror stories of two people who’s AMA-prescribed back treatments crippled them simply typify the choices and results from going that route … and reinforce my wisdom in choosing to do otherwise.
Now on to why I need to remind myself of the long, long, long path from May 2013 to today.
I always figure you either have time, money or are doing it wrong. I don’t have money, so I do stuff with my time; sweat equity. I have an idea for a gardening space that will also add eye-appeal to our entrance.
Where we live, the one thing there is an overabundance of is logs. So I’ve been scheming of building a retaining wall of logs … just as soon as I can get free ones to show up here.
I regularly drive by a stack of logs that look like just what the engineer ordered. I finally stopped in, tracked down the owner, described my desire and gained the fateful “Knock yourself out” permission.
With my old friend (he’s 65 while I’m only 64 and 23/24ths) we took my trailer to fetch the logs.
You’re kidding!
We can’t lift those!
I lift one end of one, pronounce it “Not too bad”. We commence hauling the logs to my trailer and stacking them up. Then haul them home and unload in the yard. These logs are 14′ to 20′ long!
That was a couple days ago. My “tired back” is still tired…
okay, maybe sore.
Dang,
they were a bit big.
Maybe a couple of teen-aged football players or weight lifters would have been a better choice than two pensioners.
Needless to say, It will be a while before I resume log handling to build the retaining wall… and, heck, I might even enlist a couple of young strong backs when I get around to the next phase of log moving.
