The Blog of Harald

Yes, it’s true, I threw out my back washing my hands.

On Monday morning I woke up with a bit of a twinge in my lower back, right over my left pelvic bone. A day in the car driving from Ottawa to Toronto didn’t help, but I was feeling a bit better on Tuesday, so I went into the office to deal with about a half a million burning fires.

I went to the bathroom. Our sinks are a little low (wheelchair access), so I bent forward to wash my hands. Big mistake; my whole lower left back went into spasm. I made it back to my desk, but after that I could not stand up for love nor money. Pain-killers and rest didn’t help; I was trapped in my chair, unable to get to the elevators, never mind to my car.

My darling wife came to rescue me (two coworkers wheeled me to the curb in my chair, then took my chair back to my desk; quite a sight for the rest of the HP employees, I’m sure!). She helped me hobble into my doctor’s office (after convincing the receptionist to give me an appointment that day instead of the following Monday!). I could walk, barely, if she supported me and I walked stooped over like an old man.

The doctor did a bunch of tests for pinched nerves, then wrote me a scrip for Naproxen and Tylenol 3, and sent me home. I spent all day Wednesday flaked out, but on Thursday I made it up to the shower and to dinner with the family, and today I was fairly mobile, even managed to pick up the kids from school.

It still hurts to move the wrong way, and I can’t put my own socks on :-). Still, that was my week. (How was yours?)