Worsened Spinal Problems

A little graphic I put together to depict most of today's pain.

Even though I have broken up my small stone pathway project into many small tasks, these smaller tasks were clearly still far too much for my injured spine. There is no doubt in my mind nor should there be any doubt in anyone's mind after reading my blog that once you seriously injure your spine, your spine will always be a significantly weak point of your body... enduring re-injury after re-injury. 

The latest cause of this re-injury was due to overdoing it while trying to install a small stone pathway in our yard. Everything I attempt to do has a price... no matter how small and insignificant the project or activity.

In this particular segmented project, I would move about six or eight stones out of the way... shovel out the exposed lawn... put the lawn in a wheelbarrow... move the stones back into place... then dump the wheelbarrow full of grass. Then I would move to the next small section. 

Clearly, this requires a lot of bending... definitely not good for my spinal injuries. It requires moving these stones again if even only a foot or two at a time... this is a problem for my spinal injuries. Trying to slide a shovel (in a jerking, shoving motion) under the lawn to remove it and then lift it out... well... this might have been the worst thing about this little project for my spinal injuries.  

Just completing part of this small project has left me with a major spinal flareup. Walking is extremely painful... trying to sleep is difficult, at best. I have hardly slept in two days at this point and, when I do sleep for a little bit, my mind goes to nightmarish places. Due to all the moaning, groaning and screaming, I'm not sure how even Sheila managed to get any sleep the past two nights. I'm sure I've kept her awake through most of the night.

Whenever I try to change positions whether in bed or on the couch, which is needed more often than usual because of my extensive spinal injuries, it is excruciatingly painful. Imagine being violently stabbed with ice picks in and around your hips while someone else uses a sledge hammer to pound a railroad spike into your lumbar spine and pelvis... If you can image this, you then a beginning to understand how these spinal injuries feel.

Although this is clearly another flare-up of my original injuries, this is pretty much how I feel daily. The pain is the same each day, it just varies a bit by frequency and severity. When the pain gets to this stage, however, it is brutal to say the least. Nevertheless, this is "normal" for me at this stage of my life because I've been struggling with these debilitating spinal injuries since my first line-of-duty injury way back in 1998.

Needless to say, with this latest flare-up, nothing was accomplished yesterday... and nothing will get accomplished today.

At rest, the pain is probably a six or seven on the ten point pain scale. When I attempt to move in any way or am in one position longer than a few minutes, the pain moves into the nine or ten range on the ten point pain scale. 

The pain is a sharp pain that feels as though my lumbar spine is actually segmented, split apart... I get shooting pains to my hips and even up toward my ribs. The sharp, stabbing pains feel like ice picks being thrust into my body in areas all around the injured areas of my spine. My actual spine feels even worse! That feels like someone drove a railroad spike through my spine! My entire pelvis is inflamed. 

Walking is difficult, slow and quite labored and, for some reason, I can't seem to locate my cane. I have no clue where I left it after using it the last time. That cane would definitely come in handy today as I hobble through the hospital! I need to drive up to the hospital in Burlington this morning for one of Sheila's oncology appointments so I would really like to have that cane within my reach.

It should be interesting driving my car this morning... my car has a manual transmission so I will need to use a clutch with these inflamed spinal injuries. Even on a good day, a clutch can be painful for my spine. I suspect that driving and using a clutch this morning will be brutal. I've survived it before, however, so I should survive it today as well.

Even though this flare-up is excruciatingly painful, it is still "normal" for me... it is just another day with extensive spinal injuries...


Post-Edit:  Shortly after writing this blog post, the pain diminished a bit but it spread to other areas. In particular, the pain spread upward toward the back side of my rib cage and it felt like being stung by a bee in many areas on my back.  The pain also spread farther into my groin area leaving me feeling as though I was kicked up between the legs to a very sensitive area! This pain continued for another 24-36 hours. 

When I went back to a select few physical therapy exercises to target my lumbar spine, my condition improved. I am still in pain a few days later but I am able to do things and be a bit productive with pain being a 4 (on a ten point scale) peaking to a 7.