Oh My Achin’ Back

It started out as such a nice evening. Dinner on Saturday evening with friends. Great Lakes Dortmunder and a fabulous bowl full of Pad Kee Mao. Laughter and catching up.

And then the garage door didn’t open all the way when we got home.

It was cold. We were tired. The garage door rose…….3/4 of the way up and then stopped. Hmmmmmm. The garage door opener has been on an individualistic kick of late but generally hasn’t given us all that much trouble. It is 17 years old and teenagers can be a pain in the backside. Maybe it was just something blew across the little light beams and stopped the upward motion.

I so hoped it was just that.

But when I got out of the car, HHBL’s Prius to be precise, I could hear the garage door opener motor humming away…but the chain was not moving.

Oh dear.

Google explained to me that it was most likely a gear in the motor that was now bad and would need to be replaced. Yeah, I am not doing that. And it was Saturday night which meant that no one else was doing that either until sometime during business hours on Monday or later. It was REALLY COLD on Saturday night and I didn’t even want to stand around in the garage, the unheated garage, discussing it.

So we went to bed, after letting Max out but before putting the garage door down, and just figured that we would have to manually open and close the garage door until whenever it was fixed. It has been close to 15 years since I actually had to open and close a garage door manually in order to let the car or the dog out. I remember now how much of an absolute pain in my big, fat bahookie that little chore is.

Sunday morning arrived. 6:30a I am putting on coat and boots and gloves and taking the darn dog out to do his morning “stuff”. Rats, I have to open that darn door, which I do without really thinking about it. Max finishes his morning deposit and we go on with the rest of our day……

I sit down on the couch for a bit of time to read and then decide that I need more coffee. I go to get up……..

Oh, OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOH! My lower back has decided to stiffen up like a Russian general with a chest full of medals. Oh Lord have mercy upon my back. Suck it up an be brave Deb. It isn’t anything.

I am still trying to tell myself that today.

Currently Mr. Ibuprophen and this amazing little thing are my BFFs. Do you have one of these? It is a “microwave corn bag”. You heat it up in the microwave and it provides blistering heat to whatever portion of your body needs it for up to an hour (or longer). I whipped this one up this morning because I needed a slightly smaller one that my normal corn bag. We will be BFFs forever.

Or at least until my back decides that it isn’t going to try and make my life eternally miserable.

The thing that really bugs me about all of this is that I am usually SO CAREFUL about my back. I threw it out the first time when I was in my 20’s and a patient decided to go dead weight on me without giving me prior warning. I caught her before she hit the floor but my back went, “SPROIG!”. Oh that was a pleasant experience. As was all the lovely Restoril that I was provided by the pharmacy. Just as an aside. When they say take 1 or 2 tablets…..take only one at a time. Unless you love being in LaLa Land.

So take care of your backs folks. Or else you are going to have to get someone to help you put on your underwear in the morning.

Consider this your PSA for the day. You can thank me later.