I guess throwing out my back has been a fun experience. And by fun I mean a terrible one that I hope to never repeat. And I'm not even sure how it happened - the entirety of Thursday night is a blur. One moment I was picking up a mattress topper and tiny 1lb fan but the next Charles is dropping a microwave on his knee and there’s shattered glass on the floor. Then he's bleeding on the couch, I bend to sweep up the glass, suddenly feel stabbing pains in my lower back, and have difficulty standing back up. From there it got worse.
After Charles’ lacerated knee had been seen to and the glass swept and vacuumed, I continued to move the fan and topper into the car. My back screamed with every transition from standing to sitting or kneeling. When I lifted the fan again I was barely able to stand back up. Still, I somehow got everything to the car and then fully unloaded the car at his new place. I ignored my back, which slowly ramped up in pain, and, that night, went to bed with the hope that it was something that I was just making up. When I woke up again, I was barely able to make the transition from lying to sitting, and had to brace myself when transitioning from sitting to standing. I learned that the easiest way for me to move was to put as much of my weight as possible on my arms and not to use my core. In the morning I had a blood donation scheduled and had planned to go to Hall Health after completing it and parking my car. However, after walking from W29 to LSB, I didn’t trust myself to survive the trip to Hall Health particularly well. Instead, remembering that LSB had a coffee shop at which I could get a fork for lunch, I sat there to work and minimize my pain as much as possible. Moving became more painful over the course of the day and I had no painkillers or patches at hand. Without food I became even weaker and, when I looked for forks, I found the LSB coffee shop closed for the summer and myself too apathetic and in pain to move anywhere else. Instead I sat there from 10:30AM to 5PM, surviving on coffee I had made the day before, a bag of fruit snacks, and half a bag of cheez-its. A bad decision, but one I couldn't convince myself to change. At night I ate sporadically and picked up IcyHot patches. So began my week of smelling solely of menthol. It overpowered everything else and became the only thing I could smell. Still, it eased the pain and on Saturday the pain was nearly gone in the evening. Unfortunately, it came back on Sunday with a vengeance and standing for multiple hours at Elizabeth Warren’s town hall didn’t help. I spent Sunday night in pain and unable to sleep. I called Hall Health's nurse line that night and, on Monday, started taking Advil and wearing icyhot menthol patches day and night. My back started improving. Wednesday morning was the first day I could get out of bed without pain. By Wednesday night the pain calmed down enough that I could do push-ups. On Friday I was able to boulder. Usually one-week injuries aren't awful. I've limped for a week before, annoyed but accepting. This was worse and I never want to do it again.
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