Always Remember to Lift with Your Legs
That’s correct. While bending over to pick up a simple powertool I experienced a pain in my lower back that was so intense it dropped me to my knees. Not too mention nearly causing me to black out.
It was a surreal, almost out of body experience. Like I was looking down on myself sprawled out on the patio. Back in real-time, I was acutely aware of everything around me. I could pick out shapes in the clouds above. I heard crickets chirp somewhere in the back round. I reached down and pinched my legs. I felt that. That was a good sign. About 20 minutes passed. I heard the door open. It was my daughter – home from school.
“Hi Dad!” She sang. Then proceeded to step over my supine form enroute to the storage room on the other side of the patio. I could hear her rummaging around. “What’cha doin’ on your back?” Something wasn’t right here. I’m lying immobile, doing an impression of a wounded soldier on Omaha Beach, and my daughter stepped over me without nary a glance. “Dad, hurt his back” was my limp reply, hoping for a little sympathy. At the very least a little assistance. “WellâÂ?¦be careful, Pop” was all I got in response. “Tell Mom I’ll be back by 5pm.” And with that she was out the door, basketball in hand.
At what point – I wondered – had I metamorphed into a piece of lawn furniture?
In the meantime, I need to get somewhere – – a bed, a couch, a hot tub would not be unreasonable if I’d had one. I started doing what can only be described as the “slinky walk”. You’ve seen a Slinky before. Maybe you had one as a child. A Slinky does a kind of caterpillar crawl. And that’s what I was doing now: first moving my head, then my shoulders, then my butt and finally my feet. Then repeating the process. Another 20 minutes and I was back in the house.
An hour later my wife came home, and another hour after that I was getting poked and prodded during the house-call of my doctor. Good news: no hernia, no slipped disked, no crushed vertebra. In layman’s terms I was bending forward and it didn’t matter if I was picking up a nail or a piano. My lower back was just not equipped for that particular range of motion. My doctor then went on to tell me that I was one of an estimated 10,000 Americans who have back problems. Back problems that could be avoided if I’d only remember to “lift with my legs and not my back”. I pointed out that I wasn’t lifting anything. “Doesn’t matter” replied Doctor Burns. “The same principal applies. Instead of bending over, flex your knees. Imagine you’re wearing a dress”. Suddenly it dawned on me that my wife never experienced back problems.
So despite my best efforts to the contrary, I’m getting older and paying the price for it. I have no problem with aging. I just refuse to buy into its limitations. The head games I play with myself are just meant to stave off the inevitable. It’s not like I’m trapped in some Peter Pan fantasy. It’s just that I have so much left to do.
Which for the moment at least is turning out to be a lot less. At least for the next 10 days. There’s got to be a better way.
Time to teach my daughter the fundamentals of using power tools. Without bending over of course.
