Oh, My Aching Back

My back went out last week. Holy mother of God! What a nightmare! What pain. It’s a week and a half later and I’m still on my back, and not in a good way.

It is not the first time this has happened. It happened twice; once about five years ago, and just three months ago. It’s really weird. It’s not like it happens when I’m doing something strenuous. It happens when I’m placing down something light or reaching for something. This time, I was at a painting party. Painting about four strokes with the roller. When,

Bam!

Snap!

You can hear it pop.

When it snapped the other day, my nephew told me he heard it.

So, I was perfectly fine … and … Snap! … Next thing I knew I was on the floor, holding my neon green paint-filled roller in the air, as my sister, Sookie, stepped over me so not to ruin the painted area I was just working on. I asked my niece to give me tequila shots in order to numb the pain. She reluctantly did as she was told.

Sookie is so over me. She is always picking up the pieces of my messes. And I get into a lot of trouble. Always have. The first time this happened, I was alone in my apartment, dressing for work.

Snap!

And I fell on my bed. Excruciating pain! Took me two hours to crawl over to the phone. Sookie came from Long Island, mind you, to help. She took me to the chiropractor. I couldn’t get any clothes on without pain, so I went to the doctor without a bra or underwear. Talk about bacteria on my couch! I was wearing a ripped T-shirt and unzippered pants. Well, what can I say? I couldn’t get them zipped without hitting the ceiling. And my hair. My hair immediately goes from soft curls to wire spikes sticking straight up.

Sookie’s like, “Aren’t you going to do anything about your hair?”

I’m like, “No!”

When it snapped this time, Sookie told me the same thing happened. My face contorted and my hair, which I just had gotten done at Ouidad earlier that day, went from pretty to shitty in a matter of minutes.

I went for an MRI today. I’d never gotten one before. I figured just the bottom half of my body would need to go into the thingy. But the technician started setting me up headfirst.

Side note: I had to strip for this. I was only wearing a hospital gown. Mind you, my hair was plastered down in a clip so that it wouldn’t just stand straight upward. Like a caged wild animal. But she asked me to remove it for the test. Up it went! Oy! Then I remembered, as I lifted my legs up onto the slab, that they are not shaved and they still have a little paint on them. Now, let me explain. My legs are hairy because I’d been growing them out in preparation for waxing. When the incident happened no waxing was going to be happening. There’s some blue paint on one leg because I haven’t been able to reach down to wash it off. So sue me.

So, as I lie down on the slab, I make a joke and say, “Listen, my legs are hairy. I need a waxing. Do you think you could wax them while I’m here?”

The technician really didn’t get it. But I thought it was hysterical.

I lied down. She was giving me instructions and earplugs, when I glanced back at the mummy’s tomb I was going to be rolled into for twenty minutes. I freaked. I began to panic. I didn’t think that I could get in there in that space and be still for twenty minutes, or for twenty microseconds for that matter. I sat back up. I tried to compose myself, and breathe. But I really didn’t know if I could handle it. I was ready to walk out. Then I thought, ‘If I had a blindfold, and couldn’t see anything, maybe I could do it.’

And just then, the tech suggested the same thing. I placed the blindfold on and immediately began to calm down.

Tequila probably would have worked just as well.