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Way back when, I used to run like a gazelle. I could sleep on a lumpy couch or half-deflated air mattress and wake up as flexible as a Cirque de Soleil troupe member.
Now I eat Advil gel caps like Smarties and wish that Tiger Balm came in an edible form so I could smear it on a whole-wheat bagel in the morning.
The worst part? I am a living example of that shoemaker quote. You know, the one about the cobbler who is so occupied with making shoes for everyone else that his own son has no shoes? I am a registered massage therapist without the backbone to support the career I chose in my youth, 16 years ago.
I spend my working days in a non-ergonomic slouch, dreaming of hot water bottles, Japanese soaker tubs and the deft hands of my own massage therapist. I fantasize about medieval stretching racks (maybe I should look on Kijiji?), a prescription for medicinal marijuana, numbing amounts of red wine.
At night, I roll over and over on our semi-firm pillow-top mattress, touted to be the best of the best, although it's already sagging in the middle and bears a closer resemblance to a pillow-topped taco with every fitful sleep.
My spine makes noises as if it were constructed from Lego and Tinkertoys. Everything cracks, clicks and pops like an amplified mouthful of strawberry Pop Rocks candy.
Last fall, my partner and I made several three-hour road trips to Ontario's Prince Edward County to check out real estate. I would assume the position: seated on the passenger side, packed in ice. When we'd arrive in Hillier, Ont., my organs would be near-frozen. That is, until the day the ice pack with the mystery blue goo inside finally split a seam. The ice pack had seen a lot of action in a short time, so it was understandable. Less understandable was why the blue goo that soaked directly into my skin (for who knows how long) had a soothing effect. My back had never felt better – temporarily.
I am not sure what to blame. My sister might suggest my YouTube-worthy wipeout when we were snowboarding at Sunshine Village in Banff a decade ago. I definitely saw cartoon stars that time – shamefully, on the bunny hill. When I forced myself upright, I saw a magical snowfall of silver sparkles and my poor sacrum felt as if it had been kicked in. I wiped out about 26 times that day, falling off the ski lift even, and also après ski, when I slipped on a frozen-hot-chocolate spill in the parking lot.
I’ve fallen a lot. It’s the risk factor of running and biking year-round. I’ve gone sideways down staircases (it was much more fun as a child on a sheet of cardboard) and had eggplant-sized and coloured bruises for months. I also spent a month in the Congo rainforest, wearing rubber boots and carrying 50-pound bags of cement, rice, peanut butter and other supplies. I carried lots of absurd things, even chimpanzees, on my hip while volunteering at a chimp rescue sanctuary.
A colossal wipe-out while running through Riverdale in Toronto might have contributed to my ongoing pain. I run for exercise, but also because I am often late. Such was the case that day. I was dashing to meet a friend at a coffee shop after grossly miscalculating how long my subway commute would take. In my hustle, I flipped over a lip of the sidewalk and came crashing down like a house of cards. I was certain that someone had pushed me down from behind. What I didn’t expect was that I would fall and get the flu at the exact same time. Except it wasn’t the flu – nausea, I learned, is a cardinal sign of concussion. Despite my massage-therapy training curriculum, it hadn’t even occurred to me that I’d given my brain (and back) a good shake. I thought I was buzzy and spacy from two Americanos.
I have subjected myself to a jumble of remedies over the years. I’ve licked 9-volt batteries (but that was for parasites, not back pain). I’ve soaked a hot dog bun in milk and duct-taped it to my buttocks overnight (that too was for jungle tapeworms). I’ve drunk poisonous-tasting Slovakian teas. I’ve tried Anma (where tiny people walk on you and fold you into a pretzel faster than you can tap out and say “Uncle!”) as well as Tui Na, Thai massage and cupping. In Thai massage, the therapist does yoga to you, which is appealing when you have hip flexors and hamstrings tighter than Princess Leia’s braids.
The final blow came last August. I was emptying the dehumidifier in the bedrock basement of our old stone house. I’ve always hated the thing, and the awkward bucket-emptying manoeuvre it involves. That day, I squatted as usual, pulled the bucket out – and locked all of my lumbar facet joints. For those who aren’t well versed in anatomy, it’s when your spine audibly clunks and moves into a different and awful position.
My new part-time job is getting back my 25-year-old back. The back that allowed me to sit balled up like a shrimp while I binged on Northern Exposure. The back that didn’t enter the forefront of my mind whenever I picked up a case of beer or moved an old fridge out to the curb.
Yes, I’ll get back there. It’s not a stretch. Or maybe it is.
Jules Torti lives in Cambridge, Ont.