Why Don’t You Get Off My Back?

Today, for the first time in a little over a week, I was able to do some running. It wasn’t my usual three mile jog on the treadmill, which I try to get  in every other day. Rather it was a little over two miles of running and then another thirty minutes of walking (all on the treadmill). The reason for my recent inactivity was a lower back muscle strain that I have been hobbled with since last Saturday morning. Now, I’d like to tell y’all that I strained my back as a result of some intensely masculine activity like lifting a fallen pine tree while clearing brush or delivering my signature devastating cross-over dribble while playing hoops against one of the three stooges. But, alas, I am afraid the episode was of a domestic (and frankly much more embarrassing) nature. I am filing this post using the cloud label "aging gracefully”, but there is nothing inherently graceful about any of this.

Last weekend was the first weekend in a bit that wasn’t accounted for in terms of either a Duke game to attend or “work work” to handle. We had just completed the last development sprint on the current release of the product on November 9, so I wasn’t even going to think all weekend about the day job that pays all the bills. With all of this free time, from a planning perspective, I had been eyeing the weather forecast all week and it looked like Saturday and Sunday were lining up as perfect days to attend to the blowing, raking, and bagging of the gazillion leaves that I had permitted to pile up over the previous three weeks or so. So that activity was on the docket for sure. I also had my eyes set on the SEC Game on CBS (Alabama and TA&M) and the PSU-Nebraska game as well. (Since Pitt got its crap-the-bed-this-week loss out of the way on Friday – sigh – I wouldn’t have that emotional challenge to deal with over the weekend.)

The other activity that I wanted to complete that weekend was to setup a refurbished Lenovo ThinkPad that I had purchased for son Chris. His over-four-year-old laptop needed a new heat sink assembly. Now, I plan to replace that over Christmas vacation (handling the labor myself) and salvage for my own use, but I went ahead and ordered a refurbished T61 from the IBM Employee Sales Website. The Employees Sales website allows IBMer and their friends and family to buy new and used Lenovo desktops and laptops at a 25% discount of the normal Web price. I have had good experiences in the past with used ThinkPads. The T61 came with Windows 7, a 2GHz Intel Core Duo 2 CPU, 4GB RAM, and a 100GB hard drive. They threw in a free 1 year extended warranty (on top of the 3 months standard warranty) and a free 8GB flash card. Total was about $250 with free ground shipping. (If any friends or family are interested in checking out these deals, let me know via email.)

The new laptop arrived Election Day, but I was too lazy to mess with it after work that week – Chris had borrowed a laptop “to get by” and we agreed on a Monday pickup for the replacement. So I figured I could just do the setup work over the weekend. This was just a matter of going through the initial OS configuration, getting the latest patches and software maintenance downloaded from Microsoft Update, installing a virus detection program (AVG) and Office and just generally kicking the tires on it to make sure it hangs together before I turn it over.

So I awoke on Saturday around 6:00 AM, popped in the contacts and threw on some sweats, and stumbled downstairs. Figured I’d start the setup work, get the coffee going, and have this knocked out by 9:00 AM at the latest, and then move on to attack the yard work. By about 6:15, I was in a world of hurt and my weekend was pretty much screwed.

The picture above shows the ThinkPad as shipped, encased underneath a taut, thin, plastic film that ensures the unit doesn’t bounce around during shipping. The instructions for unpacking the unit stress not to “cut the film” as this same packaging can be reused if the need arises to ship the unit out for service. Makes sense and I am dealing with a refurb unit, so I don’t want to cut the film. My lower back muscle strain (as absurd as this sounds) comes about when I try to dislodge the unit from underneath this thin film.

The above picture provides an overhead illustration of the area where the injury occurred. I was standing directly behind the chair which is flush against the kitchen table (remember I just awoke). My laptop is in its normal spot – a position from which I can keep an eye on the Sharp Aquos in the family room.

In hindsight, there were so many options that I could have elected to take that wouldn’t have resulted in a lower back strain.

1. As the packaging instructions recommend, I could have simply removed the film-and-flap assembly from the outer box and folded up the flaps on the left and right sides. This would have released the tension on the thin film and the machine would have rolled right out. This option was apparently too much work.
2. So I decided to “fast path” things by (attempting to) wedge out the laptop from within its film tomb by extracting it while applying adequate pressure. Even having chosen this dubious path, I still could have reduced my opportunity for injury by either:
   1. Moving the laptop in the middle out of the way and centering the box with my torso.
   2. Similarly I could have slightly turned and repositioned my body to align with the box in a more natural fashion.

But no, I ignored all of the above rational options. Instead, I elected to simultaneously bend over and twist my back while attempting to extract the entombed T61. I had perhaps wedged the laptop an inch or two underneath the film when I felt that really weird twinge - that twinge that tells you that you are screwed. I think the twinge may have even been accompanied by an audible crack. I just froze and tensed up - fully aware that I had just stretched or torn a back muscle. The pain hadn’t arrived yet – it had the patience of Job and, before introducing itself, was just going to chill and wait me out for the next micro movement of my core. Damn, how could I be so stupid! It had been about 4 years since my last lower back muscle strain – for that episode, it was two days of agony, and four-to-five days of stiffness and gradual improvements in the pain and range-of-motion.

You know what is really underrated? A good hard wooden chair. I found that I could sit at the kitchen table and at least function since I could reduce the movements that were so painful. I completed the setup work for the new laptop (the reason I injured my back in the first place) from there and set out to reacquaint myself with the treatment for this crap by surfing sites like WebMD. I could have sworn that heat worked better for me last time, but apparently ice is recommended for the first day or so. They tell you that inactivity is bad, but don’t push it the first couple of days. Sigh. I tried walking on the treadmill (2.5 MPH with no incline) to stay loose, but that just wasn’t working. My back and my upper thighs and calves were just burning. Around noon, I decided to trudge upstairs to do some time in the whirlpool tub in the Master Bath – struggled liked hell just to get my shoes off – and realized that I really needed a hard chair in the bedroom. Then the spasms started and I decided to wave the white flag – I was going to shut it down – inactivity be damned.

Problem was that I was in need of a couple of critical items: an anti-inflammation pain reliever and some some beer for the ball games. Unfortunately, acquiring those items required getting into a car and driving. Decided to sack up and stop being a pansy. Meander slowly out to the garage and almost get stopped in my tracks with the pain in trying to get positioned in the driver’s seat. Seriously consider abandoning mission at that point and calling one of the kids as I am not sure I am going to be able to get out of the car, but way too prideful for that. Then get this, as I back out of the garage, I trigger the garage door remote to close the door and it doesn’t budge. Unbelievable - there is no freaking way I am getting out of and back into this car to close the garage door. I look up toward the heavens and think to myself: “Really? So was it that drunken rant about the Springfield Bishop? Or are you still pissed off about my vote on Tuesday? All-Powerful and All-Knowing? Maybe. All-Loving? My ass!”

By 3:00 or so, I am back in the house with Aleve and beer in hand, but a crucial decision confronts me. Do I take an Aleve, which will hopefully reduce the inflammation and provide some pain relief or should I have some beer while watching the Alabama game? My back is throbbing but I really like to drink beer when I watch sports. This is a toughie. In no way am I proud of this, and children please don’t do this at home, but I actually open up Google Search on my laptop and enter the search terms: “OK to drink alcohol with Aleve”.  You have to believe that Google has analytics that could quantify some sort of “dumbass quotient” given a collection of searches that a user has made. But hey, it was worth a try. For the record, I enjoyed the beer that evening and popped my first Aleve Sunday morning.