#back injury

[anigst]

High Card - S01E11, S02E01, S02E02

[whump-or-whatever]

Imagine, if you will, a whumpee who is sitting in the bath, relaxing into the warmth of the water, only to eventually have to peel their injured back off the surface of the tub wall they’ve been leaning against.

[promptsforyourwhumpfic]

Whump Prompt #1113

Anon asked:

Do you have any hurt/comfort prompts about chronic pain? My character has chronic pain from old spine and knee injuries and I want him to be taken care of for once instead of having to endure it alone (like me lol).

Sorry to hear you’re suffering Anon! Here are some comfort-based prompts for you. I hope these help: 

When the pain gets so bad, and the caretaker hasn’t seen A in a while, they’ll take a drink and some food to them, as well as a fresh hot water bottle or two to their room. A has been in bed all day, so is thankful for the snack and heat source - their electric blanket just isn’t cutting it. 

Maybe they hate using their mobility aids, but the caretakers find a way to make it more bearable. They glare at anyone who stares at A, they ‘pimp out’ the aid to make it more appealing, if they use a cane they could wrap the handle in something soft to stop it causing blisters (your caretakers always have plasters on hand for this occasion, though).

After too many occasions of A causing themselves more injury/agony by forcing themselves out of bed/a chair/off the ground, the caretakers insist on A texting them if they need help. A is at first reluctant to do this... but one day its so bad all they can text is ‘help’, and the caretakers come running without question. When they’re up, all A can do is apologise in their embarrassment. The caretakers literally don’t care; they’d rather take five minutes helping A up instead of forcing them to endure it themselves. They’re just worried that one day A wont have anyone nearby. 

Maybe they help monitor how much pain medication A is taking (they’re prone to taking too much when it’s bad), because all those tablets can’t be doing A’s liver any good. 

They help with alternative pain management: baths, hot water bottles, an electric blanket, recreational smoking, small exercises etc. 

For A, the summer is unbearable, all the caretakers can do is help massage the painful areas, yet it also inflicts pain on the whumpee. 

A is also miserable when they’re sick - they cannot get comfortable and every cough sends spikes of agony through their spine. 

The caretakers make sure A doesn’t spend too long on their feet (missions/outings etc are planned accordingly.)

If missions/outings do go on for longer than expected, then it’s unlikely anyone will see A for at least a couple of days as they recover. 

Speaking of which... what happens if A is faced with a scenario like the one that caused them their injuries?

Your caretakers comfort A whenever they feel like a burden. They love to remind them that they are more than their body: while it may betray them, the fact that A has survived their injuries is a huge feat of strength. 

And one for the giggles: A is dragged begrudgingly to an acupuncture session to see if it helps. (They were even more begrudging to admit that it did.)

[sweaterkittensahoy]

Threw my back out on the dog walk because the final corner to come back up to the house has a large, wooden fence, so I never know if that dog it outside until Bean freaks out.

Bean freaked out. 16 pounds of dog at high-speed yanked me from my fingertips to my toes.

The poor pup behind the fence didn't do anything for a moment, and then there was just a little whine like, "I thought I was gonna make a friend."

Anyway, I took a handful of ibuprofen and will likely be fucking ruined on a muscle relaxer shortly.

[bunnyseahorse-blog]

Yoga seems promising

i am not supposed to do anything high impact cause of my back. No trampoline either cause it compresses the discs, or so I’ve been told. However I did a short yoga video with my sister, and it was a bit sore, but my L5 disc felt a lot less swollen when I was done. I am gonna do it more often. I am NOT flexible, but the relief was still noticeable

[autobot2001]

Day 16; A Stupid Decision

Angstober; wake up call Whumpober; alt 12; broken AI-lesstober; chronic pain OC-tober; doing autumnal chores Flufftober; Emergency, confession, adventure

The Whumpee and family planned a day to go outdoor autumnal chores. Whumpee chooses to do the roof prepping for the winter. Everyone else argues they should get a professional. Whumpee doesn't listen to the arguing as they climb the ladder. The rest of the family goes to do their tasks.

Everything is fine for an hour before a scream is heard. Everyone stops what they're doing and rushes outside. They realize the one who screamed is by Whumpee, who lies on the ground in pain. "I've already called an ambulance," the woman who screamed says. Everyone knows this is a serious emergency rather than just calling it a day with the chores.

Three hours pass and Whumpee lies in bed in a room in the hospital. Even while they can feel every limb and have an arm and leg in casts, Whumpee still worries they have serious injuries. Believing the IV pain medication keeps the pain away and possibly hides other injuries. They're tense when the doctor walks into the room. Aside from their broken arm and leg, the doctor tells Whumpee they have a few bulging disks in their lower back. Which likely will result in Whumpee having chronic pain. The doctor does inform Whumpee that surgery to repair the discs is possible, but they'd like to wait a few months and Whumpee doing physical therapy before talking about surgery. The doctor asks what happened, though they've been told by family. Whumpee now has to confess he was working on the roof. The doctor can tell Whumpee failed to take safety precautions, though they believe Whumpee should have called a professional.

After a week of pain medication for their injuries, Whumpee stopped taking their pain relief. Unfortunately, this only lasts a few days before they deal with pain daily. Along with the pain, Whumpee has been getting lectures on how this should be their wake-up call about doing stupid things.

Two months after their fall, Whumpee had their casts removed. They need physical therapy, which they think will help with the pain. The Whumpee is aware they might have a break from frequent pain with their exercises. Their official diagnosis of chronic pain will likely not happen until they're finished with physical therapy.

Whumpee believes they thought wrong as they deal with back pain. They only hope the pain doesn't become a problem that they cannot do anything. Whumpee was hoping not to hear the diagnosis of chronic pain, but it's been long enough for the pain to be considered chronic. Whumpee decides to figure out management before surgery.

Dealing with the pain has been manageable. It's the constant reminders from Whumpee's family that's been annoying. "Enough! I get it!" Whumpee lashes out. Whumpee walks away in pain.

Six months since their fall, Whumpee is only dealing with chronic pain, but they don't want to go through with the surgery. Fearing they could end up paralyzed. Accepting a life of chronic pain.

** I know this is a debatable ending. Who wouldn't want to be cured of chronic pain, but I think some would worry because it's the spine. **

[vinkunwildflowerqueenupdates]

A Year Ago Today

If you follow me here, you probably know that I'm working on a Christmas fic right now. You may also know that this was something I've been working on for a year, and was originally intended to be written for Christmas 2021.

And then right after I had the idea (in August), I bought a house. Which changed my plans, because I had limited time due to packing and everything that goes into buying a house.

You may also know that the other thing that happened during that time was that I injured my back. Bulging Disc.

Well, that was a year ago today.

And because my anxiety-ridden brain loves to dwell on these things, I decided to write it all out as best as I remember it. Which is messy. But it did make me feel better.

So, here it is:

My back hurt. The spot right in my lower back where your back meets your hips, right alongside either side of my spine (in between L5 and S1 vertebrae if you wanna be technical and know your spine quite well. I did not yet. I just knew that was The Spot Where It Hurt).

Which was nothing unusual. It’s hurt since I was eighteen (I was thirty-one at this time). And I’d spent the past days and weeks packing and moving boxes full of my life to the new house. Of course it hurt. (Yes, I’d had movers do most of it, but I’d still done the majority of the packing and there were some boxes and things that I didn’t trust to the movers). 

But now it was done. All the boxes were moved into the new house, the important things were unpacked- kitchen, books, DVDs. The latter two may not seem important to most people, but when you have twenty-two boxes of books (the movers said it was the most boxes of books they’ve ever moved and I was quite proud), and three or four boxes of DVDs (yes, I still have DVDs), unpacking them clears a lot of space.

I’d survived another week at work, going home each afternoon and unpacking more boxes until I couldn’t handle moving any more and then retreating to the couch. I’d already decided to give myself the weekend off from unpacking this weekend, just to rest.

“A whole day in bed only getting up for food or the bathroom will just give my back a chance to rest,” I’d decided. 

So that’s what I did on Saturday. 

On Friday night, I’d moved my laptop and my little portable laptop table upstairs and didn’t get up except for food or the bathroom. Or to heat up my heat bag. Which despite having a TV in my bedroom and doing much the same things I would be doing downstairs sprawled on the couch, was super boring. 

When I woke up on Sunday, I was bitterly disappointed that my day of rest had not magically cured my back pain. 

My next hope for a miracle cure was a hot shower. Just standing there beneath the hot water. I don’t remember if I attempted to wash my hair or not. I know I didn’t try to shave my legs- I’d done that on Friday night in the shower. It hurt to bend over, so I’d had the bright idea just to squat and shave my legs that way. Which worked until it hurt too much to stand, and there was nothing in my shower I could grab to pull me up. 

I’d honestly thought that I’d have to crawl out of the shower on my hands and knees to the toilet and use that to get myself up. Luckily, I managed to stand eventually. I don’t remember how now. 

So I wasn’t going to attempt that again. 

I got out of the shower and got myself dressed slowly. Putting pants on also was a thing, because raising my knee to my chest hurt. I don’t remember the Before, but I know After the only way for me to get pants on was to lie on my back and put my pants on that way, like some kind of weird turtle. For some reason, it didn’t hurt to raise my knee while lying on my back, only when standing or sitting. 

I decided that I was bored with bed, and that Sunday’s rest could be accomplished downstairs on the couch. Easier access to the kitchen. 

I’d made the trip with the laptop and laptop table upstairs on Friday night in one trip, so I assumed the return trip could also be done only in one trip. The laptop table was on the floor, laptop on top, so I knelt down to lift it.

And then there was Pain. 

Blinding, hot, white pain in all directions from The Spot in my back. It reached all the way up to my arms- to the point that I dropped the laptop table because I couldn’t grip it with my hands. I remember just praying that I hadn’t broken the laptop, because I did not have the money to replace it just now, not to mention everything I would lose on it, if I had (the laptop is fine, just FYI). 

A note I didn’t mention is that I’d bought a new bed for the new house, but it hadn’t arrived yet (Fun Fact: it would not arrive until February. It was November). So I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor. 

Upon which I now fell like I was a stunt person diving into a crash mat. My whole back was spasming, and I was seeing black spots. 

I lay there gasping for breath and taking slow and steady breaths, hoping I wasn’t about to either pass out (given that I live alone and have never passed out before) or throw up (because that is just very unpleasant and I wasn’t sure how I’d make it to the toilet for that). 

I only knew two things then:

This was not my normal back pain.

Something was very, very wrong. 

I eventually got up. I feel like I might have tried to get up and had another spasm, I don’t remember now. I do know that when I did get up, I had to be on my stomach and then get up onto my hands and knees and somehow stood up that way. 

I made my way slowly downstairs, got down onto the couch and then realised that I didn’t think I’d be able to get up again. 

I debated whether or not to call an ambulance. But I didn’t feel like this was an emergency enough for that. 

So I called a colleague who lives a few streets away, who I didn’t think would mind coming to help me. But she didn’t answer. 

So I called my friend, who I work with but lives on the other side of town, some 30-40 minutes away depending on traffic. She answered and said she was just wrapping Christmas presents. 

Me: (paraphrasing because I don’t remember my exact words) Can I ask a big favour? I’ve done something to my back, and I can’t really move and I don’t think I can drive myself to the hospital.

Thankfully, she and her partner came ASAP.

The hospital is like a five minute drive from my house (another reason I wasn’t super keen to call an ambulance; even for that small a distance, the ambulance bill is a few hundred dollars. I do have ambulance cover in my health insurance, but still… I could move. So, I could get to the hospital myself- well, almost by myself. Inconveniencing my friend seemed the better option than inconveniencing the paramedics, who may be needed at an actual emergency, right?). 

I couldn’t walk very fast and bending down hurt, but we got me into the car. I needed help putting on my seatbelt because I couldn’t turn, nor could I reach out to pull the door closed.

I can’t really describe the pain succinctly that I felt from sitting down just for that five minute drive. It was kind of a pressure in The Spot, one that radiated down into my legs and also up. But it also kind of felt like a lock, like the spine was locking into place. It got heavier the longer I sat, until I was sure that if I sat any longer, I’d no longer be able to get up. 

Getting into the hospital was fine. I walked slowly. Although I remember my foot catching slightly on some uneven pavement and I stumbled and that was a sharp jolt up my spine. 

The triage nurse invited me to sit when it was my turn, and I had to say “no, I can’t.”

It was a wait of… maybe an hour? I don’t know. Long enough for me to feel bad that my friends were giving up their Sunday to sit with me. I think I offered to let them go, if they wanted but they stayed (in hindsight, thank God they stayed). The triage nurse did bring me some pain meds, but I didn’t feel like they did much and so I stayed standing. 

I didn’t sit again until I got in to see the doctor. I told him everything, and he said it was a muscle spasm. 

“Rest. Heat. I’ll give you a script.”

It didn’t feel like a muscle spasm, but I am not a doctor, so what do I know? 

I was only sitting for a minute or two by then, but once he left to get me the meds, I had to stand. Again, it was that feeling of “If I don’t stand right this minute, I’m not going to be able to get up.” Getting up wasn’t easy, but I did it. 

I went back to my friends and told them, so we decided to swing by the shop to fill the script before returning home. Again, the shop is a maximum five minute drive from the hospital and my house. When I can move, I’m able to walk it in 20-30 minutes. 

But by the time we pulled up to the front of the building (it was decided to drop me off before parking the car, because the parking spots are not the widest and it was a busy spot, my back was on fire. 

I have no idea how long we sat there, but eventually I managed to kind of sideways shuffle out of the car. There was a safety pole nearby (pictured above) and I kind of fell onto it, because I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t straighten up. 

It was the end of November, so it was warm but not quite summer yet. I was wearing thin sweatpants, a long sleeved t-shirt and a light cardigan. And I felt so warm, standing there hunched over that pole and I was seeing spots again. I remember staring at the concrete floor and just wanting to lie down on it- not a thought I regularly have about a dirty floor outside. 

My friends got me a shopping cart to lean on, and we headed (well, shuffled) inside. I couldn’t do more than shuffle. I think we got about thirty feet inside? And I just couldn’t walk anymore. 

My local shops, rather than hard benches, have soft ottomans in the middle of the aisles for people to sit on (pictured above) . There was one right near us, and it looked comfy. I worked out that I could shuffle sideways with a lot less pain, so we did that while we waited for the ambulance to arrive and managed to lie on it. Which helped a lot with the pain. 

When the paramedics arrived, they gave me one of those green whistles, which has Penthrox in it (drugs. Good drugs). I’ve seen them used on those TV ambulance shows and Bondi Rescue, and I’d seen people get all relaxed and kinda high on them, so I trusted that they worked. To be honest, I don’t remember feeling much of a difference. 

But they got me onto the stretcher and then into the ambulance. Every jostle hurt my back. 

To be honest, the ER wasn’t that much more helpful this time than they’d been half an hour earlier when I’d left. I saw the same doctor, and it was clear that he still thought it was a muscle spasm. But because I could not move, they couldn’t send me home this time. 

So they gave me pain meds. Really good pain meds. 

By that night, I could gingerly roll onto my stomach, but I couldn’t get onto my hands and knees. 

There were no beds available in the ward, so they moved me to the maternity ward for the night. The best night sleep I had in the hospital, honestly. 

I feel like the story gets quite boring from here, to be honest, so I’ll sum it up pretty quick. Hospitals are very boring places. And I was in a room with people who were also in pain and made a lot of noise (I am a “suffer in silence” type for the most part). They were very concerned about my bladder (because you know, back injuries), but because I couldn’t get up to use the bathroom, their next idea was a bedpan. 

This next part may be TMI, but the point of me writing this is to demonstrate what this was like, so… yeah. Otherwise, skip this paragraph. First of all, lifting my hips to get the bedpan underneath was hell. My right hip felt like… you know when you fall asleep on your hand or something and it goes numb and you can’t move it? It was like that. Except it wasn’t numb, because I could feel it. It just didn’t want to lift when my brain told it to (For the next two months if I wanted to roll onto my left side, I had to put my hands under my right hip and physically lift it myself). The bedpan was a no-go (apparently not uncommon in people my age) so the next step was a catheter. Also super fun and not mortifying at all. 

On Monday, when I still couldn’t move, they said they’d give me an MRI the next day. So I didn’t do much on Monday. They had me on endone, which made my head all fuzzy, so I probably dozed most of the day. Maybe read (thank goodness for my Kindle app). The thing about hospitals is that it’s a very lonely place, despite you constantly being surrounded by people. And the timing of my injury (ie. the end of the school term) meant everyone I know in town was busy and burnt out, so I felt bad asking anyone to come visit me. I’d kinda hoped my parents would offer to come down and see me, but they didn’t. And to be fair, I didn’t ask them. Mostly because if they’d said anything but “yes” I would have broken down, and I was doing an excellent job (I felt at least) at holding myself together. 

Tuesday I had the MRI, and shock horror- it wasn’t a muscle spasm. It was a bulging disc, between my L5 and S1 vertebrae. Pictured here (note- the pic isn’t my actual spine, it is from Google. Because no one in the past year has ever thought I should be able to see my own injury, apparently. But it’s the same injury in the same spot). Where the black bit in between the vertebrae has bled out into the light grey bit? Yeah, it’s not supposed to do that. 

So that explained all the pain. The hospital physio came and saw me and said that this is pretty common injury, no reason I shouldn’t recover fully, but also that it could cause problems further down the line, namely if I ever get pregnant. So yeah… another reason I won’t be doing that. 

By Wednesday I was able to stand. Kind of. Slowly and it hurt, and I needed help, but the physio was able to get me on my feet briefly. The thing I learned then was that it was easier for me to get up when the bed was high, but much easier for me to get down when the bed was lower. I don’t know why, but there’s probably a reason for it. I already knew that any adjustments to the bed had to be done slowly- we learned that the hard way, after several nurses tried to help by adjusting the bed to either sitting up or lying down. I got out of hospital on Thursday, once I could stand and walk well enough that I could take care of myself at home (namely, getting up and down stairs and in and out of bed).

I had some very helpful friends from work who helped me with things at home- groceries, errands, etc. I needed help to do laundry, because I couldn’t lift the hamper, nor could I bend down to get the clothes out of the washing machine once they’d been washed and hang them out on the clothesline. Colleagues and friends who are willing to help you do laundry are the real MVPs. 

Christmas was the other worry. My family lives 3-3.5 hours from me, and Christmas is always held at my sister’s place. I’d missed Christmas in 2020 because of COVID, so the idea of missing another family Christmas wasn’t ideal. When I originally mentioned this to my parents, they said “you’ll just have to drive really slowly and take a lot of breaks. So maybe it will take you six hours instead of three.” I wasn’t keen on that idea, especially because my right leg and hip was an especially painful area. I mentioned it to my doctor, and she said “you should not be driving anywhere that far right now. As a passenger with lots of breaks, maybe. Not as a driver.”

And my parents’ response to that was “oh, well I guess we’ll have to sort something out then” and when I suggested it might just be easier for me to stay home, then guilted me for not coming home for Christmas “again”. It was eventually decided that my dad would drive down and collect me and then drive me back home after Christmas. 

I was only home for a few days, and my family also made me feel bad about how short my stay was. But, my brother and one of my sisters both live at home, so when I visit my parents I sleep on the couch in the sunroom and my brother has a dog who loves to jump on people. Neither of these things are great with a back injury. 

With a bulging disc injury, the main thing for recovery is time. Which I am not great with. I started physio on my back in January, and finished in July- at least for now. I ended up seeing a new physio for this. I’d been seeing one (for a different issue), but she went on maternity leave at the same time this happened, and her replacement… I saw her three times between leaving the hospital and Christmas, and she wouldn’t touch my back and just talked a lot about how pain was mostly in our heads and was tied to our emotions. The third time, it was a bad day and all she kept telling me was to sit with the pain and breathe through it. Screw that. 

I did a Google search and found another local physio who did remedial massage, who miraculously had an appointment free the next day. I saw her, shuffled into the room and she took one look at me and said “yep, it’s your sciatica.” She gave me a massage and at the end, I could actually walk out of the room, almost normally. She recommended another physio in the practice who could help my injury, and that’s who I saw for the next seven months. 

I wore heels for the first time in September and could have cried because it felt normal (although I was very careful). My back still gets stiff and tight a lot quicker than it did, especially if I’m sitting for long periods or walking for long periods (but it did that before too). I think I’m more just aware of it all now. 

Anyway, if there’s any point to this story beyond explaining what happened to me, it is to really appreciate your lower back and be very careful when lifting things. Trust your gut when your body tells you something isn’t right, something isn’t normal. 

[out-there-artist]

Suffering with pets

It just occurred to me today that my horse doesn’t know that my back is injured

He doesn’t know why I’m not riding him

[anigst]

Bucchigiri?! - Ep 06

progress🥹🫂

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

What a stupid way to hurt my back! Brushing my teeth!

Warning: Dental hygiene can be hazardous to your health!

Ok, there were “circumstances”.

It was last night, and the house wasn’t quite 50F (no heat). I’d spent hours sewing patches on my nightgown and sculpting, curled awkwardly in the chair to get under the light. To say my back muscles were cold and not limbered up would be an understatement!

Also, in the bathroom I walk on planks over the collapsed floor, and the plank in front of the sink tilts away from it and off to the side. That means just standing there puts a twist to my back. Add a low sink I was leaning over and setting something on the clothes hamper off to one side at the same time, and it was like a game of Twister**

I had had a weirdly rough day, and an evening with various muscle cramps (and I don’t often get them), so all that might have played into it too.

I mean, “brushing my teeth” was what I was doing, but most likely not the cause.

Today has been driving me nuts. My back isn’t THAT bad, but do the wrong thing and I might trigger something major enough to put me out of action for a week. I need to take care. That means not doing anything I had planned for today!!

I tell myself “You aren’t lazy. You are hurting and being sensible”, but I’m not sure I believe it.

**I have never played Twister in my life, but based on pop culture I have an idea of the contortions involved . This idea may, of course, be wrong.

[lifblogs]

Fun Fact That Everyone Could Use

Sleeping on your stomach is bad for your back. And if you have a back injury, don’t do it. I’m sure there are ways to make it better with pillows and such, but if you’re just sleeping regularly on your stomach, no.

From, a sad stomach sleeper who can no longer sleep in their favorite way.

[funbearer]

[hansoeii]

crowley

[darkangelk007]

Chronic

Chronic Chronic pain is something that afflicts so many people. What is chronic pain? As defined by the Clevland Clinic “Chronic pain is pain that lasts for over three months. The pain can be there all the time, or it may come and go. It can happen anywhere in your body. Chronic pain can interfere with your daily activities, such as working, having a social life and taking care of yourself or…