There was a time when I could (and did) make the drive from Oklahoma to Chicago only stopping for gas. Susan and I have driven all over this country, driving from Oklahoma to places like Denver, Albuquerque, or Atlanta in a single day without stopping.

Those days are over. After just a couple of hours in the car, both of us start to get stiff. Our legs begin to swell. Susan’s still a trooper and would drive longer than I care to. We’ve implemented a “stop once every two hours” rule which put an end to setting any new land speed records, but keeps us from getting too sore while on long road trips.

Well, usually.

On our way home from West Virginia I developed a pain in my hip. We left Louisville, Kentucky early in the morning and by the first or second stop of the day, I was limping as we made our way into random gas stations. I could not find a comfortable position in the van’s front seats, which — I mean, it’s a nearly 20-year-old cargo van never intended for cross-country road trips and probably wasn’t all that comfortable the day it rolled off the assembly line.

By the time we got home, I could barely walk. I whined about it both online and to anyone within earshot. With pain shooting down my back, through my hip, and into my leg, I finally recognized it had something to do with my sciatic nerve. I’ve had problems with it a few time (once involved getting hit in the back by a truck…). There is no comfort to be found when it hurts. There is no escape. Regardless of anything else going on around you, the top thing on your mind is the nonstop aching.

I consulted my doctor (Dr. ChatGPT) and so between stretching, resting, heating, cooling, Tylenol, whiskey, and a round of steroid pills I was saving for a rainy day, I finally got made it through to the other side.

By last weekend I was feeling relatively normal again and decided to resume walking around the neighborhood. I haven’t been walking in a while and my weight loss has stalled for over a month, so Saturday morning I decided to do my shortest walk — down the block, down and around a cul-de-sac, and back to the house. It’s not a long or far walk but a good way to kick off the day.

I had already rounded the dead end and was on the home stretch when I took a step and immediately felt like someone was hitting me in the lower back with an axe. I felt three or four distinct hits — bam, bam, bam, BAM. I’m not a doctor, but it felt like something in between two vertebra squished out leaving a bunch of nerves trapped in between bone. I’m sure that’s not what really happened, but that’s what it felt like.

I had been in the middle of crossing the street and the pain was so sudden and such a surprise that I stopped walking right where I was. Fortunately there’s not a lot of traffic at the end of a dead end, but, yeah. I was stuck there.

After a solid minute I began walking toward the sidewalk. I was able to take about ten steps when BAM, it happened again. After a long pause, I started back up the sidewalk. BAM. A few more steps. BAM.

A walk that should have taken two minutes took almost ten.

Eventually I made it back to the house and fell into the first chair I came to, one on the back porch. I sat there for a while, hoping someone would either find me or shoot me, or both. After a few more minutes I was able to make my way back into the house.

For the past five or six days, my diet has consisted of alternating between four Advil and four Tylenol every two hours. I could not find a comfortable place to sit. Every time I shifted in my sleep, the pain would wake me up. I hope I’m not making this sound too enjoyable!

I often describe my pain to Susan on a scale from one to ten. As an overweight guy in his early 50s, I’m not sure there are “zero” days anymore. There’s always something that hurts. My shoulder hurts from typing this post. Like, there’s always something. But there were times over the past two weeks when I was thinking… 7? 8? It was pretty miserable.

And then one day it was a six instead of a seven. And then a four. And now, it’s a two. And man, I’ll take a two.

Last night was the first night in about two weeks that I actually slept through the night without waking up due to some nonsense in my back waking me up. So that’s better. I’m going to give it a day or two before I resume my early morning walks.

My friends and I used to joke about hurting ourselves more often the older we got. I never would have imagined I could hurt myself riding in a car or walking down the street, but here we are. Good times.