Back Trouble

Seeing my husband’s name pop up on my phone rattled me. We text each other often—sometimes even when one of us is just out on the acreage while the other’s in the house or barn. But phone calls are reserved for longer distances: forgotten lunch orders or a missing item on the Home Depot list.

That morning, I knew Willie was only forty feet away, just outside the barn. So when I saw his name, I answered, already uneasy.
“Hey, can you come out here a sec?” he said.
His voice was calm, but after decades together, you learn to hear between the words. I didn’t hear panic—so probably not blood—but something was off.

I scurried out of my office and around the corner of the barn. As I got closer to him, I began to doubt my Will-dar. He was just sitting on the edge of the new log crib he was building. Had I read things wrong? Was I called out there to peer at some tangled root he had come across? Was he about to spring on me some new plan for tackling the last of the Helene damage? Either way, I had been deep into a project in my office, so for a moment, I was slightly annoyed.

“I can’t stand up.” He spoke the words in a quiet measured tone, but they were a gut punch to both of us. After months on crutches, he was finally moving like himself again—building, fixing, creating. And now, this.

“What do you mean?” I knew what he meant, but I hoped he’d say his foot was just asleep. He meant that his back was out again. It’s happened a number of times, so we know exactly what to do to fix it, but it had never gone out while he was out working on the ridge. If he couldn’t stand up, how were we going to get him into the house? If he couldn’t stand up, how were we going to begin treating him? If he couldn’t stand up, was this finally the time we would need to call 911?

He explained that he’d already made several different attempts, but nothing was working. We tried a few more, but even with my assistance, any movement caused him to grimace, break out in a sweat, and say a few choice words under his breath. Eventually, we slowly (ever so slowly) rolled him onto his side, braced his knees against the wood of the log crib, and managed to get him on his feet. It took the better part of an hour to get him off of that bench! We were both covered in sweat and sawdust. He was still looking and functioning like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, but we finally made it to the cottage living room.

We set up the “bad back” mat on the floor, I gave him anti-inflammatory medicine, gave him his drink with a bendy-straw, and rotated ice packs under his back every so often.  That would become our routine and our world for the next few days.

Willie’s back at it, carefully, deliberately—and my phone is never out of reach. Life on the ridge has its ups and downs, literally and otherwise.