“Oh, no!” I cried as I hobbled into the living room holding the back of the couch with one hand while the other hand was resting on my lower back. “I threw out my back!”
My son Alex and husband Steven looked at me as I gently lowered myself onto the couch wincing as I did so.
“How’d you do that?” Alex asked as he got up from his chair. “I’ll go get the heating pad.” He went to the hall closet.
“It must have been when I scraped the slush off the cars this afternoon.” I was having a hard time taking a deep breath without the pain shooting down both my legs. “It just hit me now out of nowhere.”
“You scraped off the cars?” Steven said as he got me a pillow and placed it behind my back. “Why didn’t you call me? I would have gone out and done it.”
“Because it didn’t seem like such a big deal when I did it.”
By now Alex was plugging in the heating pad. “What strength do you want me to put it on?” He asked as he lowered it between the pillow and my back.
“Put it on high.” I said as I felt like a knife was twisting in my back as I tried to find a comfortable spot. “Oh my gosh.” I began to shake my head. “All I can think about is my Mom saying her back was ‘slaying her’ whenever she was laying on the couch.” I looked over at Steven. “I can’t believe I’m paying for all those years I’d rolled my eyes whenever she said that.” I winced again trying to find a comfortable spot to sit.
“Did you do any stretches before you went outside to shovel?” Steven asked as he sat down next to me.
I winced as just the small movement of him sitting on the cushion next to me had me trying to catch my breath.
“I’m sorry.” Steven said as he looked over at me. “What can I do?”
“I’m not really sure.” I could feel the heat from the heating pad begin to work it’s way through my sweatshirt. “Let me just sit here for a minute and see if it goes away.”
Steven looked over at Alex before he looked back at me. “It’s not just going to go away. It’s going to take a few days before it feels better.”
“Are you serious?” I tried to take a full breath.
“You’ve never hurt your back before?” Steven asked looking surprised.
“Not like this.” I winced again.
“Well, now that you’re getting older you’re going to have to do some stretches before you do any physical labor like shoveling snow.”
I slowly turned my head to face him. “Now that I’M getting older?”
Steven held up his hands. “Hey, I’m right there with you. I do stretches every morning so that I don’t hurt my back.”
“Can we not talk about stretches right now.” I adjusted the heating pad. “I’m just wondering how I’m going to get my socks on for work tomorrow.”
Slice of Life 