buzz buzz buzz

I have a backache. I don’t think I slept wrong (if you know me, you know I hardly sleep), I didn’t lift anything heavier than my granddaughter, an open window didn’t give me a chill and I don’t remember bending wrong. My posture is good, I don’t have the flu, and certainly didn’t over exercise it. So why the hell do I feel like I got rapped by A-Rod’s bat in my lower back?

I Googled backache and found that the best remedy for lower back pain is wet heat so every day I virtually empty my water heater letting the shower run on my back. Clean and shriveled, but no relief. Stepping in and out of the bathtub was excruciating anyway. I heated wet dish towels in the microwave which worked for a while, but after one set caught fire I abandoned that idea. Then smell of smoldering terrycloth still hangs in the air. I dismissed the thought of hunting through the linen closet for the three heating pads I know I have in there as soon as I realized I would need to climb on a chair to reach the shelf I was pretty sure they were hiding on. The Ben-Gay pain patches and their much cheaper generic co-horts didn’t do too much but like any good placebo the fact that there was a horrible smelling patch adhered to the exact location of the pain made me temporarily feel better. At least until I moved. Or breathed.

My husband made me take pain relievers. Note that I did not say pain KILLERS which would have made more sense, but I took the little white pills he handed me in hopes of some relief. Nothing. Maybe even less than nothing. I checked the bottle. Excedrin Migraine…what part of backache didn’t he get? I laid on the floor. It was cold and hard and hurt. I had my grandson walk on my back. Scratch that, I asked my grandson to walk on my back…. he marched. One useless treatment after another. And then like a light bulb going off in the proverbial darkness….my son broke his toe! He has drugs. Pain KILLERS! I waited impatiently for him to get home from work. Vicodin…..Codeine….Oxy-whatever? Got any left? Please, please, please!

“One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small, and the one’s that children give you don’t do anything at all…” (not around in the 60’s ….you wont get it…) Nothing. Not even a buzz. I waited….they say 20 minutes to work. Waiting waiting waiting….Nothing! Not even a…………oooooh, what’s this? Buzz buzz buzz.

My back is still horrid. I moan when I walk, whimper when I bend and snivel when I sit. But when it gets really bad I take a pill, wait 20 minutes and I forget about the pain. I forget my name and where I am….and the fact that there are only two pills left. Uh-oh!