Once again, my body has failed me.

Normally I would be at work right now, doing tech support and database administration. Instead, I’m at home in bed, and will likely be stuck in bed for a few days on doctor’s orders. How did this happen, you might ask? Well…

A week and a half to two weeks ago, I started noticing pain in my lower back. It wasn’t TOO bad, but it was annoying to say the least. I decided on Saturday that I would call my doctor on Monday morning and see if I could get worked in to see him about the pain. Things were fine on Saturday evening, so I wasn’t too concerned. Then, Sunday, I managed to aggravate it badly after sitting in my desk chair for a couple of hours. I tried switching chairs, but that only made it worse to the point where I could do nothing more than lay in bed after 7 PM on my back, waiting for the pain to go away.

At 2:30 AM, I woke up, and could move around. So, I decided to sit up…

… and fell back down with a scream of pain loud enough to wake my parents.

From that point, my back started twitching and spasming, with each spasm being bad enough where I got to the point where I was gasping for breath and begging for an ambulance. An ambulance was finally sent for, and I got sent down to Houston Northwest Medical Center’s emergency room.

The prognosis from the ER doctor is that I badly sprained my lumbar muscles. He’s prescribed me a painkiller and a muscle relaxant, and has ordered me to stay in bed for the next few days to let it heal. I’m okay with that for now; I can access the company network remotely from my work laptop and also have access to my main PC via RDP. My main gripe is that I’m hoping I don’t miss Meredith’s and Jonathan’s New Year’s Eve party for the second year in a row. Ah, well… we’ll see.

In the meantime, I’m just going to relax, take my meds, and hope I actually do get better, as this pain is really for the birds. Here’s hoping… :-)