Painful lesson
February 10th, 2024
I am all about learning lessons and drawing conclusions from them. That is a big part of my life — if something happens to me, then I want to make sure it will never happen to me again (if it is a bad thing), or that it will keep happening to me (if that is a good thing). I thought I had it set in stone on the instinct level already, but apparently, I didn't.
The first part of January brought on heavy and constant snowfalls, which meant I was shoveling heavy and wet and cumbersome snow daily. And that led to annoying and unpleasant lower back pain. Obviously, that was something that would require going to the doctor, maybe doing some tests, going to a specialist, or getting some treatment for my spine. But, I decided that the pain would just go away if I did nothing and went about my life like nothing happened. Each morning was terrible until I started moving and stretching. The pain was momentarily debilitating, but I still did nothing — it was supposed to go away by itself. And over the next weeks, slowly it was getting better. The periods of pain were of lower intensity and less frequent. Until this morning, that is. Maybe I slept wrong or turned too quickly in the shower, but the pain came back and was making me barely able to walk. I feel somewhat better now in the mid-afternoon, but I know that I definitely need to see a doctor — and come Monday I will start making calls and appointments. I don't know how quickly I will be able to see a doctor, possibly in a few days or a week, but that means that three weeks will now go by when I could have done something to better my health and my condition, but I didn't. I feel terrible about wasting that time when I thought something would go away without much effort from my side.
And I am sure the fact that I will turn 50 in a few months, and I think about myself as being in very good physical shape had nothing to do with my inaction — I mean shoveling some snow is not a big deal, right? And yes, I am only able to be sarcastic towards myself now.
