With homage paid to my childhood heros The Three Stooges, I have been dealing with a life long problem that has recently reared its ugly head again....my bad back.

It started innocently enough. I wasn't chopping firewood, dangling from the roof reaching to splash some paint from a crooked ladder on some two hundred year old piece of the house that hasn't been touched in years.. (my everyday stuff).  Noooo!!....the twinge started as I reached with the duster to wipe a cobweb from a small corner of the apartment that we rent in the basement. It developed into a throbbing ache after lunch and ignoring it completely I began raking leaves and picking up branches from the latest storm to hit the area. I rested on the porch to admire the work that I had done trying to maintain our Ponderosa but when stood up I felt a pain that I hadn't felt in a while but did recognize. It started in my lower back, shot down my legs and before you say...."Hi Ho Silver...away"..........I was on my knees unable to move. 

Here it comes I thought.....the heating pad, lying on the floor for hours, the inevitable question...."You have done to much again...haven't you?" I could handle it....I have done it many times.

Well by the second day of crawling to the bathroom I knew that this episode might be serious. As the crawling and stabbing pain from the attempts at getting off the floor continued for a week, I began to think...Is this the way that it is always going to be? I could deal with the pain, I had done it before....not with drugs or any prescriptions but by letting it run its course and knowing that it would end in a couple of days. This was different. It wasn't the pain or lying on the floor instead of sitting, or the fact that I now noticed how much the ceiling needed to be painted...noooo... it was about the length of time that it was taking to feel even slightest bit better. It was a week before I could walk more than a couple of feet...it hurt but I was up again. I began think back to 37 years ago and how short goals made big progress possible. It would work again. But the thing that bothered me the most was the possibility that everything that I had gotten use to had changed.

Would this happen again and not from doing something strenuous like stacking firewood when I could feel it coming ...instead the next episode of debilitation would come on a Sunday morning reaching for the syrup for my pancakes and land me paralyzed for another week or more. It bothered me ...the uncertainty....could I plan anything that involves something more taxing than reaching for the remote?  Would I have to cancel a night out with friends or not start video projects that I had thinking about for fear of letting everyone down when my back failed me again? I could become a recluse...It was a comfortable thought...I was half way there already with my music, interent, and the guitar collecting dust that I pluck but still cant play, to keep me happy. Who needs people, biking, fresh air...I can do without it...right?  

Well I don't have the answer yet but I do know that you can only prepare so much...what will happen is sometimes out of our hands. I have learned many things in life with one the most important to me being...everthing changes ..so dont get to comfortable.  Sure I will stretch more do some more core strengthening exercises and maybe even see a doctor or physical therapist or two... who knows. But the uncertainty will be there. But it wont deter me from making plans...plans that I may have to cancel or change but heh...that is life...live adapt and carry on down the road!