My Back

The VA has been approving pretty much every request for outside care these days, since they've been taking heat; so my doctor and I took the opportunity to get me some physical therapy, chiropracty, and acupuncture. The chiropractor took these xrays and it's actually worse than I thought. I'd been told there was some "degeneration" before, but I had pictured some subtle misalignment of the vertebrae. I'd never been shown and had it explained like this before. It's not in the x-ray, but he said there's also a curve in the middle back, compensating for the upper and lower ones.

While showing these to me, he shook his head in sad perplexity: "I'm amazed you're not in more agony than you are". He was referring to the discussion we had just had about my workout schedule and physical activities: going hiking, etc. Well, Doc, the thing is, I actually am; I just got to a place where I couldn't let it stop me living my life anymore. I did that for years, and ended up in a very dark place. 

"My back's as crooked as a question mark." 

He says that this kind of deformity is caused by trauma.

Lower back injury is from the tank accident.

The impact of the truck when I stopped it using the other truck twisted my neck and bent it forward. I gave the numbers: vehicle weight, load, speed, etc., to a physics professor once, and he said I hit that other truck with enough force to launch the space shuttle out of the earth's gravitational pull. This is what it did to my spine.

Conversation I had with someone before I went hiking:

"Can you afford that?"

"Yes. I've got my disability, and so get paid while I'm gone, since I don't work." (I was planning on being gone nine months at the time)

"And yet you can do this...."

Well, THIS ^^ is why I'm on disability. It hurts all the time: all day, every day, and it often wakes me up at night. I manage to do things because I'm determined to do them, not because they're easy or because there's nothing actually wrong. Did it hurt while I was backpacking? Hell yes. Every single step, every moment I had that pack on was torment. But, as my drill sergeant taught me, F.I.D.O. ($#@! it, drive on). And when I stopped because of my knee, it wasn't because I couldn't take the pain anymore; it was a rational decision based on the damage it was doing and the future consequences of continuing to further damage it.

The good news is that the treatments, along with physical therapy, are helping. As will continuing to get in better shape, although at the moment the intensity of the exercise is actually making it hurt more. But I figure, I'll deal with the pain now, with the help of the therapy, and then when I've reached my fitness goal, I'll ease off to a maintenance level. My MD and I would like to get me to a place with all this where I don't need any pain pills anymore. It's a bit of an ambitious goal and I have my doubts, but it would be nice: I'm skeptically optimistic.

My chiropractor is a genuinely decent man, and a big supporter of veterans. He said that any treatment I need which the VA doesn't cover, he's going to do at his own cost. Wow. Only way I can make any repayment for that is to say that if any of you in the Charlottesville area have pain issues, go see Dr. Cox. He's not only a good guy, but very good at what he does.

An interesting note on acupuncture: they have a machine hooked to a computer that measures the meridians and tells him which are out of balance. I had several hits, but one in particular made the sensor sound like a Geiger counter at Chernobyl. Turns out it's the one associated with unrequited love. And sure enough, upon the first treatment, I felt significant emotional relief. It didn't solve anything, by any means: it just gave me a temporary respite from the overbearing weight of it.