Picking Up the Pieces After an Injury

When I was growing up, going to the doctor was a serious affair. It never happened unless my parents were fairly certain we needed something. I didn’t realize at the time, but the reason was almost certainly related to costs. I grew up in the US, and while children are covered under their parents’ insurance until a certain age, there are still a lot of costs associated with health care.

What this taught me was that insurance is for emergencies or any necessary unavoidable cost. It’s a fallback, a safety net. Something you only reach for when you can’t deal with the problem any other way.

But a few months ago, after my back went into spasm and I was experiencing the worst pain in my life, I spoke with a dear friend. This same friend recommended Osteopathy to me – a type of care I had never even heard from before. He reassured me it, along with several other treatments he recommended, were covered by our insurance. (He works with my husband, so he can say this with certainty.)

Then he said something that has blown my mind ever since. He said, “Me and my wife always max out our insurance every year.”

What is that old saying? I believe it’s “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

For the first time in my life, I’ve started to think of my insurance benefits as a resource that’s available to me rather than an emergency fund. And along with many of the other revelations I’ve experienced since my injury back in April, it has completely changed the way I think about self-care.

Step 1: Dealing with the Pain

On May 7th, I attended my first Osteopathy appointment. At the time, I was still in a tremendous amount of pain and I had no idea what to expect. Osteopathy had been described to me as being akin to ‘body voodo.’ (Those are the exact words my friend used.)

It turns out an Osteopath is sort of a cross between a chiropractor and a massage therapist. They basically look at the way your body is moving and find ways to help you correct it. It sounds vague, I know, but it sure does work.

Osteopathy is a holistic approach to medicine. It focuses on natural, non-surgical techniques. It involves a lot of gentle movement. My osteopath has been very good to me. And she has often explained that she tries not to over-treat my body. She waits until it’s ready to move into the proper formation.

The first time I saw her, she mostly just calmed my body down in order to mitigate the amount of pain I was in. When I returned for that first appointment, it felt as if I relaxed for the first time in over a month. I could feel my body shifting into a new alignment, just like I felt the gentle pop when she helped my spine realign during our session.

From the first moment I stepped into her office, I felt assured that I was in the hands of someone wise and knowledgeable. I felt greatly acknowledged during our conversations, and she was also honest with me, explaining her limitations but also what she was doing to assist my body.

It took several sessions, but she helped me get back into a state where I felt like a functional human being – even if I was still fairly sore.

Step 2: Fixing the Problem

On May 21st, once my pain settled down to manageable levels, I started physical therapy. In this case I had a better idea of what to expect because I’d spoken to several people who had been through physical therapy. Once again, I entered the domain of a wise woman who took seriously everything I had to say.

This was when I discovered what happened to me. My physical therapist was able to give me answers just solely based on descriptions of my pain.

I injured a disc in my back. This type of damage is evidently caused by coughing or sneezing.

All the way back in November of 2025, I had a terrible cold. I coughed all day every day for so long that I injured my back. For days it felt like a jackhammer being driven into my spine until, at last, I was able to stop coughing enough that the pain eased.

It took almost 2 months for that cough to fully leave me. It was well into January before I finally chased it off. By then, my back felt better and I thought all was well. I had no idea I’d done lasting damage.

But this year has been tough. There have been a lot of aches and on and off sciatica pain. I thought it had to do with my lack of movement and my tendency to sit for so many hours of the day. I had no idea I was continuing to damage my body until, at last, it finally decided enough was enough.

Not only was my new physical therapist able to tell me what caused my pain, she was able to give me the tools to start putting myself back together. It took time, but I was finally on the mend.

Setbacks Happen

Recovery is a process. I’ve always known that, but I’ve never really experienced it before. I will fully admit that for the first several weeks after I began the process of recovery, I feared I would never again feel like myself. I thought that pain would be a part of my daily life forever. And the level of pain I was experiencing at that time was unpleasant.

But with time and patience, I slowly began to feel more like myself. I regained the ability to bend. I was even able to start my dishwasher without utterly destroying myself a second time.

Then the setback happened. It was such a simple and silly thing. One night, while I was checking to make sure the doors were locked, I encountered a spider. It was on the floor and easy to reach, and my husband was asleep. I was confident I could handle this. So I took off my slipper and put on my shoe.

The plan was to simply sneak up and step on the thing. Quick, simple, not at all scary. But then it ran. Toward me.

Let’s just say I panicked. I slammed my foot down as hard as I could and managed to save my life. But it was only after I completed the act and felt the shockwave move through my body that I remembered I was recovering from a back injury.

Oops.

There were a lot of tearful phone calls the next day. But everyone told me the same thing: shit happens during recovery. Setbacks are normal. My physical therapist even told me it was good to see how my body handled stress. But it hurt! and I had only just started to feel like myself again.

Step 3: Rebuilding

At the time of this writing, a little over a month has passed since the spider stomping incident. This morning, I had my next to last meeting with my physical therapist, and she was pleased by my progress. Though my muscles are still sore from the process of slowly unwinding, she has deemed me ready to start rebuilding my back muscles.

The MRI I had done on my lumbar spine revealed a 6 millimeter bulge in my L1 disc (the lowest portion of the spine above the tailbone). It seems this is the largest a bulge can be and still be considered moderate instead of severe. But according to Google, there’s a 90% success rate of treatment without surgery.

Pain is still a part of my daily life. In truth, since I sit so much, I might have to spend the rest of my life low key managing the sciatica in my left side. But my pain levels are low enough now that they rarely hinder me. I can walk at a fair pace and for a decent amount of time. I can bend without cringing. My muscles are still sore, and I have no idea how long it will take to fully work the knots out of them.

But I am doing so much better than 2 months ago.

One of the biggest silver-linings to come out of this situation is that I’ve learned how to properly take care of my body while continuing to do a job that requires a great deal of sitting. Things will never go back to the way they used to be. The change to my habits will have to be permanent.

But it turns out that’s a good thing. Because a lot of what I was doing before was unsustainable.