I Hurt My Back

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I hurt my back last Thursday.

I have never had a back injury.  Like, never.  I’ve hurt my neck, broken my thumb, sprained my ankles, and torn my ACL, but my back has never given me problems.  As a chiropractor, perhaps this is to be expected, but in fact, the opposite is true.  Many of my colleagues decided to join this profession after having great success with chiropractic for their own back injuries, and many others now suffer with lower back pain as a result of the physical nature of what we do.  But for me, despite two babies, 225lb deadlifts, and a clumsy fall-down-often nature, my lower back had been spared.  Until Thursday.

Thursdays are my GSD day (Get Sh** Done).  I don’t have clinic hours that day, so my day often begins at the gym and ends at the grocery store, doing computer work, or cleaning my house.  This past Thursday, I was with my 9am crew working on back squats.  It was a 12-minute working segment; one back squat per minute for 12 minutes, with progressively increasing weight.  On minute six, I lost my focus.  I didn’t concentrate on my core, or my breath, and I heard a “click” from my back on the way down to the bottom of my squat.  I didn’t have pain immediately, but it’s not my first rodeo, and I knew exactly what I’d done.  I let my competitive ego take over, finished the workout, and then called the clinic.

I was in a treatment room less than two hours after that dreaded “click” and by then, I couldn’t even stand up straight.  But Dr. Dave worked his magic, and when I left thirty minutes later I was feeling almost 100%.  Through the weekend, my back pain came and went, but with some heat, core stability exercises, hot yoga, and a great Sunday long run, I am back to full function and pain free today.  Five days from start to finish; from hunched and bent forward in pain to a full deadlift workout at 6am this morning.  Chiropractic works.  That treatment set me up on a path of quick healing.

I’ve written about low back pain before, but this is the first time I had been on the other side of the coin.  This experience has grown my empathy and expanded my amazement with the wonders of my “job.”  It comes down to mechanics, and if we can fix your mechanics, we can get you out of pain and functioning optimally.  Quickly.

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She was there.

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I feel so happy.

I’ve just had a three-day visit with Shannon, one of my very best friends.  She flew from Calgary, just for the weekend; a quick little getaway to use up some airline points and get in some girl time.  She left her husband and two young boys at home, and when she left my place yesterday afternoon, she said to my kids,

“Thank you for sharing your mom with me.”

Such an interesting comment, and so applicable to this stage in our lives.  You see, the last time she visited Burlington was in the Spring of 2009, when I was a brand new, first-time mother.  On that visit, she had her husband and 18-month-old son with her, and they came specifically to meet my newborn.  I was still trying to figure out the new version of me, and the balancing act that comes with parenthood.  My memories of that visit are scarce, muddled amongst sleepless nights, non-stop nursing, and piles of laundry.  But she was there.

Her visit before that, in Spring 2006, is also foggy for me, but for a different reason: my bachelorette party.  Shannon and my friend Sarah flew in to surprise me in Toronto, only a few months before my wedding.  And as a control freak and a planner, let me tell you that I cannot be easily surprised.  But they pulled it off, and whisked me through the TO club scene with a crown on my head and a bachelorette sash around my neck.  She was there again.

Shannon and I have been friends for nearly 20 years now.  We met in l997, at the University of Calgary, when we lived on the same floor in student residence.  We were both raised in small-town, rural Alberta, and had a shared love of sports and boys, with some Type A stubbornness and ambition thrown into the mix.  When we went back to our respective hometowns for our first mid-University Summer, we cried like we were going off to war, and when we returned back to school in the Fall, we celebrated like the Uni students we were.  We’ve been through breakups and heartaches, cross-country moves and graduate school, weddings and babies, mistakes and accomplishments.  We’ve travelled to Milk River and Sundre, Red Deer and Edmonton, New York City and Toronto, Vancouver and Vegas.

“Thank you for sharing your mom with me,” she said, and my heart was full.  Because she gets it.  She gets that my primary role around here, and to those little people, is mom.  She also gets that my other roles are wife and chiropractor and friend.  She knows the back-story that wrote my story and the blocks that built my life.  She’s a part of my foundation, my memories, my past, my future.  When the big stuff happens, she’s there.  And when the little stuff happens, the stuff she doesn’t see because we live so far apart, she books a trip East to see for herself.  “What do you want to do while you’re here?” I asked her when she booked her flight.  “I want to see your life,” she said.  So I showed her: she saw bedtimes and school drop-offs and CrossFit and downtown walks and hot tubs.

She was there.  Just like she’s always been.

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Game 4

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If you follow my blog, or know me personally, you will know that I am a Toronto Blue Jays fan.  I grew up in a very sporty family, and even got to go to a game (all the way from lil’ ol’ rural Alberta) in 1993, when the last wave of Blue Jay fever was gripping Canadians.

I met my Jays-loving husband in 2004, and we have been to a game or two every year since, and started taking our children to games every Summer since they were tiny babes.  This year, we’ve upped our fanship significantly; we’ve probably watched 50 games on TV and been to five regular season games up close and personal.  Our children both have Blue Jays posters on their bedroom walls, my son can name every player, number, and position, and my four-year-old daughter will happily tell you every pitcher on the roster and how Osuna is mommy’s favourite.  We play backyard baseball in rain or shine, argue over the strike zone at our local ball diamond, and talk Blue Jays over breakfast nearly every day.  Am I painting a picture for you?  You see, we’re all in.

That’s why today is such a special day.

We’re taking our kids to the ALCS Game 4 this afternoon.  And the best part is, they don’t even know it yet; it’s a complete surprise.

It’s quite a surprise to me too, as the possibility of going to this game wasn’t even on our radar until yesterday.  But I don’t work on Tuesday afternoons, and a 4:08pm first pitch works well for families.  “This is our chance to take them to a playoff game,” I texted my husband.  “Let’s do it,” he said.

So, with falling prices on StubHub and a slightly early school pickup, we’ll be there this afternoon.  We’re raising sports fans, and this experience won’t be forgotten by any of us anytime soon.

This is #OurMoment.