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Texas Agriculture Archive

October 18, 2002

One morning recently, I was awakened by a howl. It wasn't a dog. It was Mel.

"What in the world is the matter with you?" I asked.

"I got a ketch in my back...oh... oh...oww..." my husband muttered, in broken syllables as he attempted to straighten up.

"What did you do to it?"

"Nuttin' I can thank of. Jist woke up an' could hardly git outta bed...oh...oh....oww...doggone it..."

"Here, let me rub it for you," I said, patting a spot on the bed for him to occupy. "Now, where is it hurting?"

"Kiney in the small o' my back," my husband said.

I began rubbing and kneading.

"Lower...more to the right. Oh...oh...oww...That's it. Man that hurts SOoo good," he groaned.

About once every two or three years, Mel has a spell like this for no apparent reason. It always seems to leave as suddenly as it arrives, but until then, we don't get much rest around our house.

For days on end, Mel can't do anything because he says "I'm down in my lumbago," "gotta hitch in my git-a-long," "gotta sag in my sacroiliac." Has me waiting on him hand and foot.

"Hon, can you brang me a sip o' water. I'd git it myself, but you know I slipped a disc..."

I wonder if it's a disc or a cog? At some point, I'll say, "Why don't you go ahead and go to the doctor?"

"He'd jist gimme a bunch o' medicine that don't rilly hep. Don't like to be doped up. It just makes me crazy."

Frankly, I can't tell the difference. This time around, I suggested some remedies, like limbering up with side straddle hops and backbends. He didn't really go for that.

"You might try lying across the bed and hanging your upper body off," I said. "If you have a pinched nerve from compressed discs, it may bring some relief by spreading them a little.

"Or you could spread out in the middle of the floor and let me walk on your back. I used to walk on my grandfather's back when he had back trouble...of course, I was only four or five years old and weighed 45 lbs."

"I won't touch that un with a 10-foot pole," Mel remarked.

"Curry said one of his most vivid childhood memories was walking in one day to find my grandfather laying face down on the floor and Daddy standing over him, pulling on his leg for all he was worth. My brother didn't know which one to help! Wo Wo had a catch in his back, and Daddy was trying to give him some relief.

"Then there was the time a chiropractor adjusted Uncle Frank's back and something happened that caused him to be paralyzed for several weeks. He finally got over it, but the chiropractor almost had a nervous breakdown."

"Let's face it, all those years at the railroad, strainin' an' liftin' on thangs, on the ranch, pullin' an' heavin', has fin'ly caught up with me. All that hard work has done me in," Mel sighed.

"Perhaps," I said, "or it could be you're all stove-up from hibernating in that recliner of yours!"