It has come to me that I am not Superman after all. All my life I have lived with the Superman mentality that I can do anything, I can’t get hurt, and just react, don’t think, you can do it. However, recent events have rendered me “broken”. For the first time in my life I have been knocked down and unable to do what I wanted to.
About one week ago, I injured my mid back. Now, in my usually manner, I didn’t pay any attention to the stabbing pain and thought the best treatment was to suck it up and push through it. That method has always worked for me and kept me going through years of minor aches and pains with football, so it had to work this time.
On Monday, I proceeded to run 3 miles, at the end of which, my back didn’t feel better, but rather worse. I tried to ignore the pain the rest of the day and figured I’d feel better in the morning. Tuesday, I woke up with a sharp pain in my back and could barely stand up straight, but as stubborn as I am, I figured as long as I could get moving it would go away and I’d feel much better. The pain did ease up by lunch time so, staying consistent with my treatment methodologies, I played basketball at lunch which again the activity in no way made it better and by the end of the day I was back to where I couldn’t stand up straight without pain. However, I figured that if I could just ice it and keep moving I’d feel better.
On Wednesday I iced and then tried it again and went for a 3 mile run. This time, however, I was stopped in my tracks after the first mile. For the first time in my life, I had to admit that I couldn’t do it. I was not able to finish a run and had to walk back to the clinic hunched over and leaning to the side. This made me re-think my Superman theory and realized that I may not be indestructible after all. Now after 5 days of conservative treatment, I’m feeling great with just some minor soreness and am going to try to play basketball today at lunch. Hopefully, I’ll be pain free and come out with a “W”.
The moral of this story is that we are all breakable, but with quick treatment comes quick outcomes. Don’t lose months of your life waiting for something to get better.