Starting Over Again

So this blog has been sitting here, unwritten, unused and just plain unloved for while now.

I always knew I would come back to it one day though, especially if something big happened.
.
Well, something big happened. But I was hoping it would be something like "I'm here at the Crossfit games getting ready to compete . . ."

Alas no.

So on Sunday I woke up with THE worst back ache I have ever had. Back ache isn't the right description for it, it's more like a back muscle spasm explosion.

My fellow RFMers will know what I'm talking about. Like while I'm running and my back stiffens up and you see me doing this stiff walk/run like I'm in some real pain.

Yeah, it was like that except it didn't go away. At all. In fact it got worse.

I could barely get out of bed. I could hardly walk to the bathroom without holding on to the walls. I could hardly reach behind me to wipe my ass.

I thought, more than once, that "this is what it must be like to be 90", except I was fifty years too early.

The next day I feel and couldn't get up. No, seriously. I was on the floor but had my cell phone and called Kaiser and said I needed to come in now. After about 20 minutes I was able to peel myself off of the ground, get in the car and get to Kaiser. When I got there I needed a wheelchair to transport myself from the parking lot to the doctor's office.

(By the way, that little episode I was talking about, trying to get off the floor so I could go to Kaiser? Harder than any WOD I've ever tried to do.)

So my doctor sees me in a wheelchair and he's like, what the hell is going on? I tell him I don't know and he checks out my x-rays. My side profile x-ray he showed me that I have some sort of bone spurs on two or three of my vertebrae. I was like, so what, can you go in and shave them off?

He said no, and told me straight that I have arthritis and will always have it. In fact, he said I've only been able to stave off feeling like this with my workouts.

So basically, all those times my back hurt from working out was the trade off for having a completely fucked up back. This changes everything.

This whole time I've been thinking that I have to take it easy so that I don't make my back worse. Well according to the doc workouts are the ONLY thing that keeps it from getting worse. Like I'm feeling now.

Makes sense because I went on vacation with my kids for about 10 days, then when I got back my workouts were few and far in between. I was tired because I went right back into work mode after the vacation and just didn't feel like working out.

All told I was pretty inactive for three weeks I think.

And that's when my back said fuck you, and stabbed me with a stick of dynamite.

Right now I'm writing this in bed with this little portable electric shock therapy unit sending pulses of electricity to my lower left back. It feels pretty good but at some point I have to take this thing off and stop taking pain killers.

I'm trying to stretch but believe me when I say that even the Crossfit stretches and warm-ups would kill me right now. I can do push-ups but sit-ups are all but impossible. Even changing my clothes at the gym would be a feat of strength.

But make no mistake, I'm coming back. I'm coming back and never taking a day off again because I never ever EVER want to feel this way again.

I wanted motivation and this is definitely it. Workout or experience back-crippling pain.

I get it. I'm motivated.

So anyway gang, I'll try to come in next week. I'm not sure what I'll be able to do or what sort of workouts I'll be able to participate in, but I'll be there.

But for now me likely the shock therapy. Ahhhhh . . .