2002.07.15

The doctor walked into the room and announced, "I have some good news and some bad news for you." He was holding an x-ray of my back as he walked to the screen to display the black and white images.

I was not surprised by the statement. My back has been bothering me off and on for almost a year now. It is not sharp unbearable pain. It is a dull fist pounding me repeatedly as I bend, turn, stand, and sit.

I don't like to talk about injuries. To tell the truth, I haven't told more than a couple people about the severity of my back pain. In wrestling, everyone is injured. It is simple, everyone has some kind of injury that they are nursing along.

Over the past couple of months the pain has been increasing. I sometimes have difficulty sleeping. As I lay motionless in bed asleep, pain and tightness begin to set in. I, instintively, try to change my body position to decrease the pain. The simple process of rolling over in bed creates enough pain to wake me up from a dead sleep. There are nights where I will wake up in pain a half-dozen times.

Enough is enough. I swallowed my 'tough guy' pride and decided to see a doctor. The doctor took x-rays of my back on Monday afternoon. On Wednesday, I returned for the prognosis.

There is good news... and there is bad news...

The good news is the doctor had zero difficulty identifying the problem. There is no second opinion necessary. There is no doubt as to the origin of the pain. The doctor showed me a picture of a normal spine and then showed my the x-ray of my spine. Needless to say, the x-ray of my spine did not match that of a healthy one.

The doctor is under the belief that the injury occurred close to 10 years ago, long before I was involved with wrestling. My vertabrae and sacrum have been without a cushion for several years. The bone on bone friction is the source of my pain.

My back will continue to be a source of pain for the remainder of my life. I can do some streches to reduce the pain. But, wrestling will not put my back in serious danger. I can and will continue to wrestle. It is all part of the exciting life I lead.