Back Problems

When I was in high school, I was a mega superstar soccer player. Unfortunately, when I was 15, I was at practice and it was freezing cold and the ground was extra hard and I already had about 5000 bruises on my sides, and I went to dive for a ball but realized it was going out anyway so I tried to catch myself with my knee so that I wouldn't hit the cold, hard ground, but instead I just caused an avulsion fracture of the iliac crest apophysis. And the ball didn't go out after all and it ended up being a goal.

Let me break it down for you:

That was pretty terrible, but eventually it healed up and I was as good as new. Fast forward 1 year. I am now a superdupermegasuperstar soccer player, and we are at a tournament, and all of the sudden my back hurts. I was rubbing icy/hot on it, having people massage it, etc. For about 2 weeks, I just figured I'd pulled something in my back. My coach basically told me that this was all in my head and I needed to go see the school Athletic Trainer and have him take a look to see if this injury was for real or made up. This guy tells me I have lots of knots in my back, and that I am just "stressed out" and probably just need to take it easy for a while. Awesome. Clearly stress is not an acceptable excuse, so it's back to practice for me. But, surprise surprise, my back is only getting worse.


*1 month passes*


About a month goes by and I am constantly complaining and whining to my mom about my back pains. We decided to go see this magical sports massage therapist to see if she couldn't work it out. After an hour of massage (not the good kind either) she tells me that I have SO many knots in my back, and that she thinks I have a pulled muscle, so I need to give it 2 weeks of rest to heal.

*2 weeks of rest passes*


Still no improvement. In fact, pain worsens. So we bite the bullet and I go see an orthopedist for an X-ray. He's all "YIKES, your back's like, broken and stuff." And I'm like what? And he's like "yeah, your vertebrae is fractured, see??" I'm super pissed because all this time I've been told it's a muscle problem and people were looking at me like I was a crazy person, BUT SEE, I WAS RIGHT, IT WAS BROKEN. So he's all, give it a month and it will heal.


*1 month passes*


No improvement. In fact, GETTING WORSE, cannot walk normally anymore. I kind of shuffle around. Bending down is a hassle. Sharp, shooting pains when I stand, sit, lay, walk, breathe. I'm like MOM WTF IM DYING PLEASE KILL ME NOW. She's like OK, we are going to a chiropractor.

So the chiropractor takes his own X-rays to check out my fracture, and he's all "WHOA, your tampon is in the X-ray!!" (he didn't really say that, but my tampon WAS in the X-ray, and I almost killed myself.) And he's like "yeah, your back is definitely broken, but the reason it broke is because your pelvis is shifted like 2 inches to the right." I'm like WTF ARE YOU SAYING AM I DYING OR NOT. He shows me the X-ray:

I wish I could say that I was concerned about the fact that my spine was curled over on itself like a snake, or the fact that the right side of my pelvis was sitting a good 2 inches below the left, but honestly all I could focus on was my tampon front and center. Awkwardface. 


Anyway, here I am almost 7 years later and I am STILL having back problems. Today is the worst that it's been in a while. Not even sure what I did to flare it up. I felt GREAT yesterday.... it was nice and cool outside, I ate mac and cheese for dinner, life was winning.

But then last night something happened and today I can't walk. The chiropractor used to make me lie flat on my back on the floor with my legs propped up at a 90 degree angle for at least 1.5 hours per day to straighten my spine out. An hour an a half. That is SO long to be laying on the floor. And it's like impossible to watch tv like that.

I feel like an 80 year old crippled woman hobbling around all over the place. Maybe I should've kept those dentures I found way back when.