Consecutive bicycle work commute number 2165:
This was not the week I had planned. How many times do we say that, yet we're always surprised when a wrench gets thrown in the gearbox of life?
I've previously mentioned I've been fighting episodes of sciatica lately. On Saturday morning I was out in the yard doing some weeding. I bent down to pull some weeds from the landscaping, and (not unlike the previous few posts involving actual electricity) felt like I had been struck by lightning. My lower back exploded, and the pain shot down both of my legs. I managed to limp back inside the house, and spent the rest of the day an a futile attempt of finding a position I could sit/lay in that brought any bit of relief. I had a whole list of things I was supposed to do that day, and anything that hadn't been completed once this happened (which was most of them) were left undone.
By Sunday morning the pain hadn't noticeably subsided, so my wife took me to the acute care clinic. They think I might have ruptured a disc. The first priority for acute care was to get me to a state where the pain was down to a level where I can function. After that I can talk to my regular doctor(s) about a long-term plan. Due to my artificial heart valve, I'm not allowed to take the normal pain killers they prescribe for back pain. So they gave me a prescription for some muscle relaxers and some steroids to try to get the swelling down. I was to pair that with Tylenol.
After the clinic visit my wife drove me over to Wal-Mart to get my prescriptions filled. I thought about just waiting in the car while she went in, but the temp was in the mid-90s and her car's air conditioner doesn't put out much cold air while the engine idles. I opted to go inside with her. She dropped me off at the door, and I hobbled over to the row of mobility scooters they provide.
The prescription wasn't quite ready yet, so I rode the scooter around the store as my wife picked up some other things that we needed (unrelated to my back.) I must say I have a new empathy for people who need to use these scooters due to physical disability. I felt humiliated every time someone looked at me, like I was being judged. My mind was convincing me that they were thinking, "You don't look like you need a scooter. You must just be lazy." I know most people probably weren't actually thinking that, but it's the way I felt. It was a very humbling experience. Maybe God knew I needed to be humbled? In any event, I'm going to think twice in the future if I catch myself looking down at someone with a mobility scooter, even subconsciously.
After the prescription was filled my wife went and got the car, and pulled up to the door. I parked the scooter, and the 30 feet I had to walk to the car was difficult. A lady coming into the store saw me struggling and asked if I was OK. I smiled as much as I could and told her I was "fine." I'm not sure why we lie like that. It was pretty obvious I wasn't fine.
I spent the next three days mostly motionless letting the drugs do their thing. The muscle relaxers make me drowsy, and the steroids rev me up. Taking them at the same time is an interesting sensory experience. I skipped two days of work.
In an unrelated occurrence, the last two nights the southeastern portion of South Dakota has been hit with multiple derechos. If you're not familiar with a derecho, it's basically a storm with tornado strength winds, only in straight lines and over a much larger area. We had sustained winds in the 70 mph range, with gusts over 100 mph. Each of these storms dumped several inches of rain in a very short time. There was a lot of destruction, and thousands of people are still without power. The west side of Sioux Falls and towns to the south of us were hit particularly hard. I live on the east side of the city, so other than a few branches down from my trees we came through pretty well. That's good, as if there was major damage I'm not sure how I could have dealt with it in my incapacitated condition. Again, giving me new empathy for the elderly and disabled who did suffer destruction.
I didn't sleep well last night. I just had a hard time settling down. As a result I had less than five hours of sleep when the alarm went off this morning at 5:30 AM. So on top of the medications for my back, I was going to stack a bunch of caffeine to try and keep myself awake all day. Probably not the wisest decision I've ever made, but it is what it is.
By this morning I decided that my back had improved enough that I could try and return to work. My wife was skeptical about me trying to ride my bicycle, but I told her if I wasn't well enough to ride then I wasn't well enough to work. I figured if there was a physical issue with me riding I would discover it within a few blocks and I could limp back home. Getting on and off the bike is a bit precarious, but once I was sitting on the seat and pedaling it really didn't bother my back. A few times I instinctively stood up to keep up with traffic, and quickly discovered that was a bad idea. So I just pedaled along at an easy effort. There were lots of tree branches down on the MUP and the street as a result of the storm.
I was on the road bike. The temp was 68°F and the humidity was in the 90% range. There was no wind so I got pretty drenched with sweat even riding at a moderate pace. The wind is supposed to kick back up so I will have to fight it on the way home. There's a chance of more storms during the ride home as well, so that may make things exciting.
Normally on Wednesdays I work from the client's location which is only about 4.5 miles from my house. I arrived at their office to discover they had closed the building due to the HVAC system being down, which I suspect was a result of storm damage. I went up to my desk on the 3rd floor to retrieve my laptop computer so I could work remotely. It was already 85°F inside the office, so I'm glad they had the sense to send everyone home.
I then rode 10 miles from the client to our company office. By the time I had arrived my medications had kicked in making me feel pretty loopy. I showered and shaved, which hadn't been done since the previous Friday, and that helped me feel a little more human. As I type this, I'm feeling sleepy, jittery and buzzed all at the same time. It's an interesting experience to say the least.
For anyone interested, I posted my latest bicycle commuting video: