Posts Tagged ‘Degenerative Disc Disease’
Pain Again
In the ongoing excitement of degenerative disc disease, I had a very interesting experience yesterday. I have done well to maintain my routine of daily 1/2-hour walks, and have been working my stretching and strength building exercises. Maybe I have done too well. I have had so little discomfort that there are moments when I forget that I am at risk.
Granted, I had allowed myself to become distracted, and I was thinking ahead to what I would do next, while I carried our exercise ball downstairs, but it didn’t seem like a risky action. It is hard to constantly keep your mind focused on thinking about how you are moving. All I did was lean forward a small amount in the action of intending to set the ball down on the floor. BAM! Sudden take-my-breath-away pain erupted in my lower back.
It put me to the floor. I searched for a position that might not hurt so much, but couldn’t identify whether laying on my stomach, or over on my back, offered any advantage. It just hurt.
I relaxed enough to catch my breath, struggled to my feet, and then tried to carry on with activity. I put some cold packs on my back and took some ibuprofen. This incident felt a bit worse than any of my previous flare-ups, but still seemed manageable. We had some company over for brunch and I alternated between sitting and standing. After they left, I headed for some carpeted floor and laid down where I could completely relax. I was laying on top of a cold pack that rested in the small of my back and it felt good. I could push my back onto the cold and against the support of the floor. Maybe that wasn’t a good thing to do.
When I decided to get up, I discovered that I couldn’t find a way to do it. With great effort, and against new waves of pain, I found I was able to roll over, but I could not find a way to get myself upright. Cyndie and Julian needed to do the work of lifting me up from under my arms, but I found I could hardly stand up and support my own weight without scary amounts of discomfort. This was all completely new to me.
I have no idea what the exact physics of that episode was all about, but I will refrain from laying flat on the floor, with an ice pack under my lower back, for some time to come. Slowly over the remainder of the day, and after multiple doses of ibuprofen, I felt I was gaining the ability to function without debilitating pain, but this is a definite set back in my ongoing effort to live comfortably and function relatively normally, despite degenerative disc disease.
Ouch.
Delicate Attempt
The results are in, and in my opinion, my performance at yesterday morning’s soccer [futsal] game was a mixture of success and failure. But that is a good thing. It would have been a surprise if it turned out to be just a smashing success. What would that be like, anyway; that I could play just fine with no pain? No, that would fool me into thinking I could go back to my old routine, and all indications point to that being a counterproductive plan of action.
I definitely felt some impairment due to the discomfort of my degenerative disc disease. However, that made it easier to remain very conscious of my situation and helped me to purposefully control my stride. I think I did a pretty good job of running with a very smooth gate, light on my feet, as opposed to the usual pounding I am prone to do. If that made me slower, I was compensating for it a bit by making early decisions about where I was going to go. I headed back into a defensive position much quicker than I would have previously.
That is actually a very smart mindset for me to get into, because now that I think of it, the clomping back to help on defense that I used to do, most often involved me chasing an opponent from behind, too late to do any good.
Although I believe it was entirely serendipitous, one of the successes I enjoyed was scoring goals! I’m generally not a very prolific goal scorer, but I had 4 really good goals that came from being fed beautiful passes when I was positioned on the far side of the net. It provided a nice reward and a feeling that I contributed something positive for having shown up. I think it would be a stretch to say that the attempt to soften my effort for this indoor game was responsible for the uncharacteristic increase in scoring prowess, but the goals sure served to sweeten the morning’s effort for me.
One of the failures of my attempt to play at a slower pace, with less physical impact, was turning the ball over when I had plenty of time to make a decision and execute a play. I just didn’t have my usual touch. Several times, the ball just got lost in my feet. One time, I actually swung to kick, and missed the ball. I was trying to shift my weight and keep my eyes up, and by the time I kicked, the ball had moved. Two times in particular, my turnover led to an immediate goal by the other team.
Another time, I misplayed an attempt to block a shot and it deflected off me, directly into our net. I wondered aloud if that was “a Hays,” because it led to the 5th and winning goal for the opponents, but players assured me it fell outside of the ‘own goal’ act associated with that label. I offered an opinion that it might deserve to be a sub-category.
It was a morning of mixed results, which I am taking as a promising outcome, overall.
Relative Something 