Telluride 2009

Two Friday’s ago, snowboarding at Stowe, VT…

As I stood up, my low back just went out, and all of my torso, hip and butt muscles went into absolute lock down.  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I said to myself as I slowly skidded over to Mary.  I knew the instant it happened from painful times past that one of my “L” discs was not too happy.  I tried to brush it off and took a break and then a couple more runs taking it REAL easy.  

Yet, in my mind I was furious… “I can’t believe this… I’ve just been getting back in to shape and feeling really good again.  That’s it?  I’m now on the sidelines for a while.  What, 4 weeks? 6 weeks? No way am I done snowboarding for the season.  Aww… I’ve got a trip in two weeks to Colorado with the guys to hit the Powder of the West!  No, way!  I’m not letting this take me do…ooowwww… owww.. ohhhh yeah, that hurts!”

With over a decade of chronic back pain ever present in my daily life due to a compression fracture in T-11, I have pain management strategies in place for accute exacerbations.  However,  if this is a disc issue, it WILL take more than two weeks to resolve.  Well, it has been 12 days, and my departure for Colorado is scheduled in two days.  I have been pursuing aggressive chiropractic and acupuncture treatments with significant improvement. 

This past weekend and tonight I visited the kiddie-pool at the gym, which is shallow and kept at a balmy 92 degrees.  With floats under my calves and a noodle under my back and arms, I just lie there completely free of gravity and just focus all I can on relaxing every possible ounce of tension on my radar.  While over the weekend I played with some light yoga (child’s pose and downward dog), tonight I did some stretching. 

The general concensus is that when I stretch and engage the muscles to get the blood flowing to them, the more they tend to relax and be less painful.  I would say at this point my pain has gone from an initial 9-10 down to a 5 or so.  The most painful part of this process has been coughing, especially during chest PT.  But I dare not back down on airway clearance, especially if I’m not doing my regular routine of exercise.

So unless something between now and 12pm Thursday puts me in complete muscular lock-down again, I will be making the push to hit the slopes.  I will obviously be much more conscious of my movements, and cautious to hit the steeps until I am comfortably warmed up, and confident in my agility.  While I have significant fears of the possible repercussions of this injury becoming worse, I am choosing to focus on the positive, and believe that the exercise is going to be better for me than worse. 

If possible, I will post an update of how it goes from CO.  But if not, I will report back upon my return, hopefully still vertical and breathing! 

Peace out!

B