I Woke Up Like This

These were the first words out of my mouth when my doctor walked into the exam room today, and we both laughed. (I'm sure he was, as I was, thinking about how people usually use this phrase, in an entirely different context.) I was seeing him for a back problem, which I actually woke up with yesterday. I knew he was going to ask what I had done to my back. The fact is, I didn't do anything. As I said, I woke up that way. Because of a herniated disk or two in my lower back, it always hurts. But when it flares up, it can get very bad very fast. The normal pain I can live with, but by this morning I had sciatica down my left leg and spreading pain up my back. I refuse to have back surgery; even though it was more than forty years ago, my father had a bad time with back surgery and was left permanently disabled. Probably that wouldn't happen to me, but as long as I am able to function, I just won't do it.

The likely culprit this time is a pulled muscle, but what's weird is that I also had a fever of 102. I didn't know I had a fever before I went in, just figured it was a usual flare-up. So if it's not a pulled muscle, it's the flu or some other infection that it hitting my back especially hard. The doctor did several x-rays, but of course neither of those things would show up there. The x-rays were fine. So here I am, dosing up on muscle relaxants -- I'm supposed to be taking pain meds too, but I can't make myself do that either -- and watching crap TV. He said to let him know if I'm not much better tomorrow after resting today. I'm committed to going to work tomorrow and getting some more painting done later in the week. I'll do both gently.