I managed to take a shower without causing internal bleeding of the spleen. I somehow mastered brushing my teeth without growing a benign brain tumor. I even miraculously put on my pants without disclocating my hip. But apparently bending over and putting on my left sock was a little too much for my,(now official), bona fide old-lady back last Friday morning. It was as if some vengeful chickie-leg hater had clobbered my lower back with some sort of evil, post-birthday, "welcome to your late-twenties Beth" jack hammer.


I (wrongly) assumed my back would feel better by the time I got to work. Yeah not so much. You see, I somewhat pride myself on never being late, and never missing work. I didn't want to call in sick because I always feel bad about making my co-workers cover for me on the phones. So I limped to my closet and managed to slide on a sweater. Fifteen minutes and several odd looks later, I arrived at my car. At this point I was in tears. I opened my car door and tried to get in. This is when I realized going to work on time wasn't going to happen. I called a co-worker and asked if they could sit at the desk until I got there. She could tell something was seriously wrong and told me to just not come in. Another 15 mintues later I was on my bed, crying. I called for my mother who was dropping off my niece.

The pain was ridiuclous. I mean seriously, walking downstairs and back upstairs must have angered the Back Gods because it began to hurt a gabillion times worse. My mom called back and said that she couldn't come over till 12:30. She told me to warm up a towel and switch hot to cold and get on "all fours" and do some "floor exercises". I told her there was no time for handsprings, and I had no spotter or that weird chalk-bowl-thingy. I tried to explain to her that I could not move. At all. I finally realized I was destined for a wheelchair, so I prepared her for the role of my 'care taker'. As I began to list off my preffered brand of toilet paper and favored toothpaste flavors, she told me she would be here as soon as she could.

Around 11:30 I hesitantly called work again pleading with someone to come to my apartment to give me some advil at the least. But my door was locked. It took me about twenty minutes to literally crawl, pulling my body towards the door and reach up and unlock it. It was like a scene out of some ridiculous Lifetime inspirational made-for-tv-movie, or maybe a war-film where my legs were amputated and I only had the strength of my arms to pull myself to safety, and then later I could do appearances to rival Stephen Hawking making upwards of $100,000 per speech about destiny and determination, or maybe I watch too much television. Whatever. The point is, it hurt.

After unlocking the door I collapsed to the floor and stayed there for the next five hours. I was literally right next to my door when someone from work finally came in. "Good Lord Beth, what the hell happened?!" I explained to her the situation, and how it even hurt to talk at that point. She had brought some crazy ass 1000mg motrin for me. But I hadn't eaten anything since the previous nights' left-over birthday ice cream celebration. (Which, let's be honest happens every night) So I asked her to get some granola bars from my kitchen. I felt so bad asking her to come out, because just a few minutes later my mom arrived.

I remained on the floor next to my door until about 4:30, when I reluctantly informed my mom that I had to use the restroom. The process of getting up off the floor, using my kitchen cart as a walker and using the walls as a support was humbsane. (mix between humbling and insane)It must have taken half an hour. Now that I was up, I told her I wasn't going to sit back down. I was holding my weight with this kitchen cart thing for about 15 minutes as I contemplated what we
should do. My mom, meanwhile was nervously cleaning my apartment and taking trash to the nearby trash room.
As she walked back inside, my head starting becoming numb, I got real hot and everything starting getting black. I quickly told my mom that I was about to faint. The next thing I know I am on the floor and my mom had a wet paper towel on my head. Apparently I fainted and blacked out for 30 seconds. She wanted to call 911, but I felt that a fully (now) conscious person didn't need an ambulance. I would feel stupid. But eventually the pain would not subside and the 'Aleve' was aleving nothing except my previous unfounded fear of taking Aleve. So she packed some clothes and helped me walk to her car. If anything I started to look authentically 'gangsta', albeit roughly 10 years late. But I'm 'retro' like that HOLLAA!

Right. So anyway, we finally arrived at the hospital in the "emergency room". And by "emergency room" I mean a room full of people that had such dire emergencies such as stubbed toes, scrapped knees and minor headache. Then there was me a girl with a possibly broken back. So about a completely reasonable three hours later of standing, waiting for a doctor to see me, (after being put through the so-called 'fast track' wing), I was put into a room. My mother and I waited as I suddenly rememberd that I hadn't shaved my legs in a ..little while. (I never wear skirts) (I am single) (shut up, it's sorta normal) Anyway so then I started freaking out because I saw that one of the doctors was cute. I scanned the room, was there a lady-bic in there? What if I get the cute doctor? What if he wants me to put on a 'gown'? What if he wants to inspect my legs for absolutely no reason other than to make my nightmares come true? My socks are only so high! I kept on looking at my mother and asked her to pray with me that he was not my doctor, and if he was, that he was at least married, or had a hideous facial scar or mole, or SOMETHING.

So OF COURSE he waltzed into my door telling me he was the Physician's assistant, and would be helping me out. He asked the normal questions; "what happened?", "where does it hurt?", "can you bend", "show me where it hurts", "when is the last time you shaved your legs?" Dammit. So he stood behind me and inspected my back, which meant he could see my butt. Which I felt at that point was worse than possibly seeing my legs. Oh well. So they wrote me a prescription for vicodin and flexeril (muscle relaxer) and we finally drove to my parents' house. The vicodin and flexeril worked well in that they pretty much knocked me out for the next three/four days. I finally came back to work yesterday in hopes that I was well enough to stay. But I left early because I went to see my doctor and I just wanted to rest some more. He gave me some 'celebrex' and told me to do some sweet moves, and put cold stuff on it. Which I read as 'take more drugs, learn karate and buy more ice cream'.

I came back into work today, feeling MUCH better and hopeful that it lasts until at least this weekend. But in all seriousness I would like to give a 'shout out' to my mom for taking care of me during this whole ordeal. I couldn't ask for a better care-taker, unless she was a single hot dude, but other than that, she was cool. Also thanks to my co-workers for covering for me while I was gone. I know how much answering the phones suck. And a big thanks to those of you who asked how I was doing and waited in anticipation to read this ultimately boring story.