Blogging 365, Day 4: I’ve Got My Nerve

Preston, a Facebook friend and fellow blogger, has been sticking to his workout regimen and should be congratulated. He’s doing great and is getting into excellent shape.

But just last week, he posted that he was a bit perturbed about injuring his back when in his mind, he’s doing everything he can to keep it in shape to avoid injury.

Someone jokingly mentioned age. I agreed. Then someone else mentioned age, all in jest.

But the reality is that back injuries can stem from something as simple as sneezing. That’s just how it goes sometimes and I mentioned this in the comments as a way to make him feel less…old. I’m not sure if it worked.

Flash-forward to New Year’s Day when we were taking down our Christmas decorations. I had already been up and down the ladder several times and taken down the external lights and moved a ton of stuff around in the garage to accommodate the boxes or ornaments and decorations. Felt pretty good all things considered.

I then moved into the living room and began to take apart the Christmas tree which, as you can guess by that qualifier, is a fake one. Ann had already stripped it of its ornaments and being it’s a pre-lit tree, all I had to do was take apart in three easy steps.

The first part was simple. Bang, zoom. Done. Then I pulled off the second part and again, no issues.

Then, after taking apart the second piece, I had to disconnect a string of lights connected from that piece to the next which was sitting pretty low in the tree. I bent down to reach for it and…

…pain. Pain in my back like I’d never had in my life. And much like my friend Preston, I do what I can to stay busy and in shape to have a body that is strong and resilient to serious injury. But sometimes, even while doing what seems to be the most innocent task, your body will just not cooperate.

And that’s exactly what happened to me. I didn’t twist weird (to my knowledge), didn’t overexert anything. But whatever I did was bad enough to make me scream bloody murder and drop what I was doing.

I naturally stopped the cleaning up to take a break and then did what everyone else does when they screw themselves up: online research. And from all indications, it seems that I’ve aggravated my sciatic nerve because the pain went from my lower left back and all the way down my leg. In fact, I pretty much felt like this guy here for a few days.

I don’t know if you’ve every had the same thing but if you haven’t, it hurts like a mother from another planet, people. I was limping like Fred Sanford for a bit and wasn’t until yesterday that the hitch in my giddy-up finally subsided.

As of now, I’m feeling pretty good and have very little pain left. If I feel so inclined to do so, I may go out for an early morning run just to stretch the old muscles out and get back into the groove or at the very least, a nice walk. Nothing more than 5k for sure.

I tend to think I have a pretty solid body – definitely not a bodybuilder but still rugged – and can do all kinds of stretching and other physical activities. I usually ride 20 miles every Sunday and run on Saturday, plus random workouts during the week to make sure it stays solid.

But sometimes, no matter how hard you work at it, you just can’t avoid injury.

So don’t feel so bad, Preston. Getting old[er] definitely sucks.