The Scoop: My back ache hard to explain
Folks are always telling me you’re only as old as you feel. If that’s the case, I’m still trying to figure out how I’m alive at 150.
I say that after a current back ache has snatched away what was formerly a spry young man of 33. It’s his place is a feeble old man whose new best friends are a bag of ice and bottle of aspirin. That’s right. I’ve been hit with the worst back ache of my life and I feel it’s my duty, proud man that I am, to complain about every bit of it.
The bad part about feeling so old is it’s struck me in the prime of life. One minute I’m outside jogging. The next minute, I can’t get off the sofa under my own power.
It reminds me of the joke about the reporter who was interviewing a lady of 106. When asked what was the best thing about being 106, the lady responded, “No peer pressure.”
But of course I’m not 106. I’m just 33 and using a cane to hobble around town doesn’t do much for the ol’ self-esteem.
Naturally, the first thing people want to know when they see my crippled body is, “What’s wrong.” And anyone who has ever had severe back pain can sympathize with me on this one. No matter what you do, no matter how much you try to look normal, it’s just not possible when your back is really hurting. Hence, here comes the “What’s wrong?” questions.
Of course what’s equally disturbing is folks know what’s wrong. But they ask anyway. It’s like walking in with a new haircut and somebody always asks, “Did you just get a haircut?” when they already know full well you just got a haircut.
Probably the most difficult part of this whole back ache ordeal has been dealing with my little bundle of happiness, 2-year-old Benjamin. Now I’m not a biased parent, but Benjamin is the smartest 2-year-old in the world. He can already put complete sentences together and is beginning to brush up on his Japanese. OK, so I may be going overboard with the whole Japanese thing, but you get the picture.
Well little Benjamin knows all about aches and pains since he has toppled from every piece of furniture in our house and pretty much everything else within a 10-mile radius. When Benjamin gets hurt, he calls it a boo-boo.
Benjamin has been especially curious about me laying on my back for the last three days and it doesn’t do much to ease his curiosity when he sees me hoist myself off the sofa. This isn’t normal daddy behavior.
So when Benjamin asks, “What’s wrong daddy?” I tell him the truth. I say, “Daddy has hurt his back.”
To that Benjamin replies, “Where’s your boo-boo daddy?” Then he lifts up my shirt and tries to find the boo-boo on my back. I figure the kid must think I’m a real wimp because there’s not a scratch, no blood and scabs, anywhere on my back.
“Where’s the boo-boo daddy?” Benjamin always asks.
I’d been trying to explain what was wrong several times, that daddy didn’t have a boo-boo on the outside. That his back hurt from the inside. But that’s hard to do to a 2-year-old. They don’t understand hurt on the inside.
So, grasping at straws, I made what may go down in history as my biggest child raising mistake ever. I said, “Benjamin, a back ache is something you might feel when you get older.”
For whatever reason, maybe because it was at the end of the sentence, Benjamin grasped the word “old.” He then kept saying, “Daddy old, daddy old.”
As you can figure, this didn’t sit too well with a 33-year-old who is going on 150. But at least it wasn’t the worst feeling I had of the day. And anyone who has ever had a back ache would agree with me on this one. The worst feeling would have to go to the time I sneezed.
(James Clark is editor of the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)