I bitch a lot about my back, especially lately but I rarely talk about how much of an impact it has on my life. For years now it’s been this roving area of discomfort and occasional extreme pain. Get my sciatica going, and my ability to walk is anyone’s guess. But all in all it’s manageable with painkillers, exercise and various tricks.

Not anymore. Over the past several months my right side of my back (my chiropractor says it’s the muscle that joins the lower part of my rib cage to my pelvis) has been tender and spasming. When it spasms it tightens at the top near my rib cage and then travels down towards my pelvis, over and over again. The pain is to a level that I actually cry out, grunt and hyperventilate until the spasm passes. I find if I tighten the entire area it hurts just a bit less but recently that’s just prolonging the spasm itself and the tenderness afterwards.

Today is a bad day. I woke up at 7am and in the process of turning over to get out of bed to turn off my alarm, I had a severe spasm. Got to the point that I spent almost an hour on the heating pad trying to convince everything in that area to relax (to no avail). I couldn’t even drive this morning, the simple action of shifting caused the spasms.

See most days I have to play this game of avoid anything that might start the spasms. I’m right handed, so I automatically reach for things with my right hand – spasms. Cough, sneeze, inhale too suddenly – spasms. Blow my nose – spasms. Try to wipe my ass – spasms. Go around a curve in the car at anything more than a dead crawl – spasms. Bend over – spasms. Lean to a side or backwards at all – spasms. Laugh – that really, really hurts. Worst of all, if someone touches, bumps or brushes against the muscle – spasms.

The last time I went to the gym, I managed 20 or so minutes on the treadmill and then I started feeling that tenderness that warns me that I’m about to enter spasm zone. I used to have hours at a time each day with just tenderness and the understanding that if I did too much the spasms would return. But right now, it’s almost 11 am and I know that I can’t move or lift or sneeze or breathe or laugh or else I’m going to get a lot of attention from the people around me. And this is the third day of this.

I just leaned forward about 2 inches while raising my left hand to adjust my slipping bra strap on my right shoulder and spasmed. And this is with doubling up on my painkilling medication, boys and girls. I’m fucking screwed. I think I’m going to make it to class and then go home. I’m in pain almost all the time now. Severe, crippling pain. I think I need to get a handle on this before I try any of my get back to the gym goals. I can’t even move within my daily, slow life, I can’t imagine what I’d do to myself by trying to step up my demands on my body.

I just want to stop hurting. Is that too much to ask?