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Hmmm, are you squeezing all the joy you can out of today?

I have been sidelined for the past two weeks after a severe episode with my chronic back condition. How did it happen? Sitting at the kitchen table to eat my breakfast and leaning forward for the first spoonful, a lightning bolt of stabbing pain shot across my lower back. I bellowed Oh! Oh! Oh! so loud I woke my father up.

In a panic, I grabbed a cold pack and staggered to my bedroom as my lower back muscles completely seized up. I put a call into my chiropractor who agreed to give me a treatment even though it was his consulting day. But that was not to be. The worst was yet to come.

I struggled into my clothes and tried to delicately roll into a position where I could put on my running shoes which are always pre-tied with elastic laces. The exercise proved ill-advised as I twisted in a manner that my back objected to and the pain doubled down. I bellowed again and told my father to call for an ambulance.

After a half-hour on the stretcher in the ER and a shot for the pain, I struggled into a recliner (no beds available) so the ambulance attendants could get back to work. Another half hour later I hobbled over to what passes for a bed in the ER. Three hours later, after an ultrasound and a quick exam by the ER doctor, I was sent home with no treatment. Such is the unfortunate state of affairs in our hospitals these days.

I am finally mobile again, albeit cautiously, after seven chiropractic treatments and two weeks of convalescence. It is my custom after experiences like this one to give acknowledgements where due and cast about for lessons learned. The acknowledgements first.

I gained a renewed appreciation for the heroic doctors and nurses who staff our hospital ERs. Despite chronic underfunding, a near constant state of gridlock and unrelenting stress, they manage to be as kind and attentive as they can be under the circumstances. I know they wish they could do more but underfunding and understaffing prevents it.

Thanks to my sister and her husband for driving my father to the hospital to be with me, sitting with me for hours as I awaited examination and driving my father and I back home.

Special thanks to Roni (one of the ministers at North Bramalea United Church in Brampton where I am still a member despite living in Hamiton) and her husband for doing grocery shopping for my father and I while I was out of commission.

And the lesson relearned: There is no guarantee what tomorrow will bring. I did not expect to have such a debilitating episode when I have been adhering to weekly chiropractic treatments for seven or eight years. But it happened and it was miserable.

My chronic back problem puts significant restrictions on what activities I can pursue in my retirement years. Nevertheless, as my passion is immersing myself in nature, I continue to do short hikes three times a week from spring through summer and autumn. Sometimes it is a struggle to get my target 2-1/2 hours in but I keep at it when the weather is reasonable.

Bolts of lightning affect all our lives. We cannot avoid or predict them. I do not know what tomorrow will bring me. And so, despite living in constant fear of that lightning bolt of pain, I try to squeeze as much joy as possible into my days.

I urge you to not put off what brings you fulfilment for an uncertain tomorrow. By all means, plan for tomorrow and secure your future. But do your best to squeeze as much joy out of today as you can while you can.

~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet

~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel (now out of print) which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .

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Tags:   back pain · live for today · metaphor · Michael DyetNo Comments