Incapacitated

For 10 days and nights in the past two weeks, I’ve been lying in bed. I know every inch of my ceiling, and have watched ten episodes of Virgin River, a Netflix series about a nurse working in a small rural town (filmed in Vancouver, Canada, 45 miles as a crow flies from my bedroom). How appropriate.

This is the first time I’ve sat upright in a chair, the first I’ve written anything, the first I’ve checked email, really the first time I’ve done anything but lie flat in bed and think.

Back troubles run in my family. When growing up, I remember how now and then my mom’s back would go out and she’d have to lie in bed for a few days and crawl in pain to the bathroom.

My sister and I have experienced the same thing. She finally had to have major back surgery at 46 – my age now. The doctors went in through her abdomen to access the difficult areas. They told her that if she hadn’t had an operation, she would’ve eventually had drop foot; drag leg describes it better.

My latest troubles began a year and a half ago. I felt like the kids were old enough to stay home by themselves, so I joined my husband on his morning runs. Our relationship began 17 years ago with bike rides up mountains and runs along the beaches of Santa Barbara together. After all of these years of raising children and alternating roles of childcare so the other could get out for some exercise, the time had finally come when we could go out together again.

After about four or five wonderful runs at a moderate to slow pace, I was feeling great overall but something didn’t feel right in my leg. Sciatica. I’ve never been injured, so I figured it would work itself out if I just stopped running. What a short stint in finally getting to exercise with each other.

Sciatica is when you have muscles or bones pinching a nerve running from the back down the leg. It sends a lightning bolt of pain shooting downward if you do something wrong, such as bending over to pick something up or sitting in a chair.

When the summer ended, I’d had a book in mind to write. Every day after walking the kids to school and then walking for a few miles out in the beauty, I went to the library to pour the words out of my brain and into my laptop. (If I do end up publishing it, it will be under a pen name so I can’t say anything more about it.) Every time I stood up from my library chair to retrieve the kids from school, a zinging zap would flow down my right buttock to my hamstring.

Then COVID hit and the kids had to do school at home. The book-writing ended; I was almost finished anyway, so it was good timing. I began to sit less and less, avoiding the position that caused me the most pain.

When summer came again, I could do almost everything active without hurting, as long as I was mindful. I could walk, bike, hike, paddleboard, swim, and do back dives off lake docks. But I sure tired of never being able to sit down. With COVID isolating us from the world, we began watching movies a lot. I found unusual positions to sit in, but nothing was ever pain-free.

As the months rolled by, I saw a chiropractor, two acupuncturists, a massage therapist, and a physical therapist. They were all wonderful but the chiropractor moved across the country, one of the acupuncturists stopped practicing, the other felt that she’d reached a point where I’d need more help than she could provide, and the massage felt amazing but understandably couldn’t undo in one session what was pinching the nerve in there. I probably should have stuck with weekly physical therapy, as I’ve now seen a handful of sciatica-experiencers come and go thanks to the help of our local physical therapists. But there were a few exercises I was a little nervous about doing, afraid they might hurt me more. (Lesson: I shouldn’t have stopped after just one appointment; I could have told him what I felt and he would’ve altered the exercises.)

The pain persisted. There’s no way to avoid bending over – picking up the dog, getting food on the bottom shelf in the pantry, getting pans below the counter, etc. And how do you avoid sitting forever?

I started researching kneeling chairs. I bought one and after one day of using it, the pain I had learned to endure lessened dramatically. I couldn’t believe it. I still couldn’t sit anywhere else without pain, but that one change was revolutionary for me.

Nevertheless, so many of the little things in life were still painful – putting on pants, bending over to put on shoes, bending down to work in the garden beds, and sitting for long stints in the car.

Fast forward to three weeks ago. I began doing physical therapy exercises again. A friend of ours had recently overcome sciatica and passed on her additional exercises to me (from the same physical therapist I had). I wasn’t sure if they were going to fix me completely, but I was able to do Twister on the floor with the kids and various exercises we did in little competitions with each other as long as I avoided certain positions.

A week later, I returned late in the evening from a long day of shopping for food on the mainland. I had bought a very heavy shelf from the used furniture store for our son and had asked for help with putting it in the car. In my zeal to bring it inside and surprise him with it the next morning, I stupidly carried it from the car to the laundry room by myself. It’s about 90 pounds and I couldn’t carry it in any back-happy kind of way down our rocky steps and mossy stepping stones. I’ve always felt pretty independent and invincible, and I rarely ask for help when I should. I’m accustomed to doing moves that are physically demanding and lifting heavy objects. But the next morning I got a scary wake-up call, literally.

I awakened to pain that upped the ante on sciatica. Something in my lower back that hadn’t manifested in that region before. I went straight back to bed.

A few days later I was feeling better and able to do life. I happened upon a YouTube video by a man who overcame his sciatica with certain yoga poses. I did three different yet simple cobra poses, which engaged my muscles in slightly different ways than the exercises I had been doing. I stood up afterward straighter than ever, as I’d been getting hunchy to guard my back, and I felt no pain at all in my body. It was exciting.

The next day I awakened to severe pain, unable to support my own weight when standing. I couldn’t believe those little poses had done such a number on me, but lower backs in my family are very picky. Again, I got back in bed. Every time I tried to stand, I couldn’t do it without bursting into profuse tears.

I knew a snowstorm was coming, and it might be the only thick snow we’d see this year. We’ve always made the most of snow days – sledding, walking through town to see the white sights, and building all kinds of snow structures at home. I wanted to be a part of it, but had no idea if my back would improve that quickly.

For three days I stayed in bed. My husband and the boys made all the meals together and brought them to me in bed. The day it snowed, I got up and walked around, elated that I could actually do it. I couldn’t bend over but I could walk. The kids rushed out the sliding door in their snow clothes and boots, and I watched them sled down our hill from the bedroom window.

I’m usually one of the first out on a snow day and one of the last to want to come in in the evening from all-day sledding with the boys. I lamented my absence in all of the excitement.

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An hour or so went by, and I decided to go downstairs and gently begin putting on clothes. It took awhile, but I made it outside in full snow gear. As the boys loped through the thick white landscape, I looked on happily. I took one sled ride with our younger boy and knew immediately that it would be my last.

I couldn’t participate in anything they were all doing, nor could I stand for a long time without feeling pain. But somehow, walking was possible.

I asked our little guy if he’d walk into town with me, and we meandered through the snow and made our way to Crescent Beach. After exploring ice formations and snowflakes, he was ready to head home for more sledding. I went back out to walk more, as it was strangely the only comfortable thing I could do.

I repeated my snow-walking the next day as the guys sledded and built snow structures.

Then Monday came around. The kids had a three-day mid-winter break from school but the usual school-morning alarm on my iPod went off downstairs. Anxious to get to it before it awakened the boys, I jumped out of bed, which I normally never do, and threw on my pants, which I can’t just throw on. I wrenched my lower back all over again after all of that great walking and got back in bed, unable to do normal life for three more days.

The physical therapists were able to squeeze me in when I called them on that third day, and I hobbled in with a driftwood cane on one side and my husband’s hand holding the other.

It turns out my left hip was rotated, pulling my left leg up unnaturally. My hip bones and ankle bones were misaligned, and my right leg was longer than my left.

The therapist had me do a high-intensity exercise working against his own body weight to align my hips and bones. It worked. My legs were even afterward, and he sent me home with three daily exercises to maintain the alignment until the next appointment. I walked out gingerly with my walking stick.

I stayed in bed the next two days, only getting up to do the exercises and to alternate my heating and cold pads.

I had scheduled an appointment with my general doctor in order to get a referral for an MRI, but there was no opening until the following week, so it was a waiting game. Not only to see him, but to then have to wait until whenever an off-island hospital could get me in for imaging. And to know that whenever that day came, it would be a very uncomfortable all-day trip in a car – waiting in the ferry line, taking the hour or hour-and-a-half ferry over the sea, driving to whichever hospital could see me soonest, and turning around to do the same trip in reverse. I couldn’t even sit in a chair for a minute or two, much less imagine sitting in the car for 10-12 hours.

It’s a far cry from mainland life in the medical realm. Back in Santa Barbara, with all clinics and the hospital within about a mile radius of each other, you could get assessed, have imaging done, and probably get in for whatever treatment was necessary all in the same day.

Don’t get me wrong, though. The medical professionals we have here are wonderful. We just happen to live on an island, where there are different pros and cons that go along with life.

Friday night, I did my last exercises of the day around 11 PM and noticed that while they were helping my lower back pain, the sciatica running down the back of my leg was ramping up and extending to behind my knee, which it had never done before. That night, I got little sleep. Sciatica pulsed through my leg all night, no matter what position I was in, and the next morning I was distraught with both lower back and sciatic pain that was overwhelming.

I walked cautiously down the stairs to make a piece of toast but didn’t make it to the kitchen. I fell to the ground in paralyzing intensity that felt like injections of liquid pain coursing through me. Tears burst out uncontrollably and I was moaning and crying out. I couldn’t move without feeling like my back was going into labor (or beyond) – couldn’t get on all fours, couldn’t sit up, couldn’t roll over. It was terrifying. I knew I couldn’t remain in that kind of state for long.

My husband called the non-emergency 911 line and the paramedics got to our house in an instant. How nice it is on an island to know two of the four people rushing in to care for you. Not to mention that it was an especially unique experience in these COVID times – we haven’t had people in our house since last March. How refreshing it was to see four people walking in our living room, no matter how nonsociable the reason was. That alone gave me an emotional boost. And to know that I was about to receive some kind of immediate answer to my pain – whatever it might be – was huge.

After giving me a pain-reducing shot in my right bun cheek, the medics advised my husband to get me to the ferry as soon as possible for the 11:30 sailing. Our older son packed a little bag of clothes for me while our younger one stayed next to me with kisses and verbal comfort. The paramedics carried me to our car and put me in the hatchback so I could remain flat on my back. I was writhing in pain inside and out, and kissed our boys goodbye. Not knowing what treatment would ensue, the idea of even surgery was all of a sudden feeling like a welcome alternative to the kind of pain I was feeling.

Every little bump we drove over was excruciating. We caught the boat just in time, with only minutes to spare. Otherwise, we would have had to wait hours for the next one.

We have the yearly membership to Airlift Northwest, which helicopters patients immediately to the hospital within minutes.

But the medics advised us not to go that route with the state of my back pain. Had we signed up for the other medical evacuation air transport service, Island Air Ambulance, that’s the option the paramedics would have preferred since it’s a fixed-wing airplane. We assume they were implying it would be less bumpy and jostly.

So the longer option it was – the ferry.

My husband was wonderful in every way through the whole process, and underneath all the layers of pain, I was elated when we arrived at the emergency room at Island Hospital in Anacortes.

The nurses ran out, pulled me onto a wooden board, and wheeled me into a room. My x-rays showed no skeletal abnormalities, but a much-anticipated MRI was not an option. A nurse explained that the emergency room is only allowed to do MRIs with victims of stroke. I was deflated. What now?

They decided to administer a muscle relaxer, hydrocodone for pain, a steroid for inflammation, and a lidocaine pain patch to stick on my lower back. Thirty minutes after swallowing the medicine, they asked if I could stand on my own. I was still in pain and couldn’t fathom being upright, but I took my time and made it up. Tears bursting out again while standing next to the nurse, I told her I couldn’t imagine getting in the car and leaving in that state. She called for another hydrocodone and three more muscle relaxers as I slowly got on the bed again.

Thirty minutes later, I was lying in a fog of medicated bliss. No pain. No discomfort whatsoever. I hadn’t felt such deep, soothing relaxation for weeks. At home, I had tried an Aleve one day but to no avail. So this was a whole new, welcomed state of being.

I still wasn’t sure how I would get better just by taking steroids and pain pills, but my husband explained to me that once the inflammation was finally down, it would give my back a chance to heal. The nurse said the steroid would have the same effect as an injected local steroid, and that I should still see my doctor, get an MRI, and continue with physical therapy.

They discharged us and sent us to Walgreen’s for prescriptions to all of the drugs I had swirling inside me. My husband ran in Safeway for our gnawing tummies, and I slept peacefully in the lowered passenger seat the whole way home.

The kids greeted us upon our arrival home, eating pizza and ice cream that our sweet friend brought over for them (thank you Iris!!). The family phone tree activated when my sister happened to call earlier in the day and talked to the kids, so it was really comforting to know that my family was holding me in their thoughts and prayers.

Exhausted, I slept most of the day yesterday. My discharge instructions say that “bed rest is not helpful.” I am ordered to get up and move as often as possible. So today, I’m up. In some ways I can’t believe it, but then again I’m still being helped by several forms of medicine. I’ve now switched from a seated position to a standing position in order to type, seven boxes of board games from the library functioning as my standing desk.

I deeply thank all the medical professionals here on the island and over in Anacortes who have helped me in the last few days – the physical therapist (both Andrew and Scott are great, and Scott is the one currently helping me), the paramedics (George, Justin, Kat, and one other whose name I didn’t catch), and the nurses. I also know I’ll be in good hands day after tomorrow when I have an appointment with one of the three doctors at our UW clinic. All three (Alperin, Russell, and Fleming) are wonderful people and great at what they do. The doctor at the other clinic is very good as well (Shinstrom), as he once sewed 22 stitches in our older boy’s knee one Saturday afternoon when all offices were closed and he was the only doctor we could reach.

Considering that we’re out on an island, though we don’t have specialists or radiologists, we do have medical people who are highly trained, firefighters and EMTs who are experienced and lightning-fast responsive, and pilots standing by who can get you off the island in almost any kind of weather. You’d be surprised how many trained laypeople come out of the woodwork when there’s an emergency here – teachers, construction workers, business people, engineers, you name it.

I’ll continue to take it one hour at a time and dream of the hard-core obstable race I’d rather be training for. If you see me out on a slow walk, I’m not being stupid – I’m on doctor’s orders.

Helicopter and plane photos courtesy of Airlift Northwest and Island Air Ambulance