By Lee Scott
The other night I was sleeping soundly when I heard a noise. I thought it might have been thunder because we have been getting so many thunderstorms late at night. I got up and started to walk around the bed. Then it hit me. That was no thunder! It was my back talking to me again. Oh how I hate it when she starts to talk to me. I walked gingerly down the hall to the kitchen cabinet where my extra strength Tylenol sits and swallowed a couple. Then I spread out on my recliner chair with its heating element and waited for her to stop preaching to me. Sometimes, she gets my leg involved and then the two of them really get upset. It is awful.
People with body parts that lecture them will appreciate what I am talking about here. Hips, knees, head; they all demand extra attention every once in awhile. For me, it is my back. She gets angry. “What have you been doing now?” she asks. My doctor told me after I had back surgery, “You are injured. You can not do what you used to do.” I guess doctors say the same thing to football players, hockey players and soccer players. “You are injured. You have to stop.”
My back problems usually arise when I forget the advice of my doctor and do something stupid. I pick up a bag of mulch and throw it into my garden. Or haul a 24 bottle pack of Spring water into my grocery cart. Those actions will wake up my back in an instant. But runners keep running despite their knees hurting. Football players keep playing even after several concussions. It amazes me to watch so many people playing sports that are wearing some kind of Ace bandage to help keep them in the game. We forget the consequences sometimes until it is too late.
So here I am a few days later and my back has been quiet. She has left me alone for three nights in a row. I am grateful that she has not sent me to my doctor for something stronger than Tylenol. Once again I promise myself that I will not do something stupid and I have posted a reminder on my refrigerator, “Do not waken the sleeping back!”
