I don't know how emphatically to impress this on you;
LIFT WITH YOUR LEGS!We've all heard it, many of us repeatedly, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one who thought himself invincible in his youth only to be in the shape I'm in now--We know because we failed to heed.
In 2003 I was getting tired of recurring, near-debilitating back pain. I went in for an MRI and a consult with a neurosurgeon. My diagnosis was a bulging disc between C7 and C6 (bones in the spine), the crossroads of the human torso. It made turning my head, looking up or down and certain positions "difficult". I was told that I was doomed to a surgical proceedure that would fuse the vertebra in my back and limit my range of motion. Being as they would have to go in through my throat, my voice would not be the same either. It was suggested by the surgeon that I take it very easy and wait til I was 70 to have this done, as the cure is a curse of its own...
I tipped my hat and vowed to "take it very easy", a promise that I kept...For a week or so. I had money to make and damn the torpedoes, I was going to do what I had to do.
I just had another MRI a week ago. The disc in question is now bulging on three sides, and I can't cough, sneeze or hiccup without a lightning bolt of pain shooting across my back and down the backs of my arms. When I'm not coughing, sneezing or hiccuping I have a constant, 24 hour a day, toothache in my back. There is no such creature as a good nights sleep for me, and the simplest of motions now require a serious consultation with my better judgement.
I'm going in for "nerve root injections", a stop-gap attempt at relieving pressure on the main nerves coming off my spinal cord. I'm told that this steroid treatment has worked wonders for some with my condition, and they won't consider surgery until I've tried it. The needle is around 3 inches long...
Surgical technology has improved in the 7 short years since my first diagnosis, arthroscopic is a consideration, also something called "clips", which are supposed to hold the disc in and the vertebra apart...Both are new...I'm waiting for the spinal transplant...Maybe by the time I'm 70...
All this is unneccessary. And painful...And yet I work, as my investment portfolio is kinda...sparse...
If you younger guys and gals read this and find a way to ignore the wisdom (or in my case, lack of), you've been warned.
LIFT WITH YOUR LEGS! is no joke, boys and girls. I'm waiting three weeks just for the consultation with the pain doctors, then who knows how long to get in for the shots.
...And Obama's utopian healthcare hasn't even kicked in yet...