Help! I've fallen, and I can't get up!

To begin, let's just briefly recount Kelly's issues with back injury:

1. In the summer before my second year of college, I tore a bunch of my spinal muscles because I picked up a kid that I was babysitting and twisted around weirdly. Got some muscle relaxers, did some physical therapy, it all turned out okay.

2. The summer after my third year of college, I was struck by a vehicle as I was walking to class. I walked away from that just fine (relatively), but it likely caused some soft tissue damage leading to...

3. The following fall semester, I had what I was told was a slipped disk, though after speaking with my dad and another doctor (and remembering that the medical care in Auburn is beyond shitty), I have come to the conclusion that it was actually the same thing that happened to me yesterday, just less severe.

Yesterday morning, I woke up and was having some pain in my lower back. It happens every once in a while since that "disk injury" a few years ago. I wasn't terribly worried about it, but it just kept getting worse and worse throughout the day. It probably didn't help that we were driving to and from Knoxville to see a play, so I was sitting down for about six hours.

When we got home, I lay down on the floor, put a pillow with a heating pad under my lower back, and put my feet on a chair with my knees at right angles. I was told by the Auburn disk doctor that this was a good position for your back. And I gotta say, I had zero pain for the 20–30 minutes that I was laying like that. Woohoo!

So after about a half an hour, I decided I should get up to take a shower. You know, hygiene and all that. So I gently rolled onto my side. It hurt a little when I did that. Then I tried to push myself up, and oh my LANTA, something was very, very wrong. I tried pushing myself up with just my arms. I tried twisting my torso so I could put both my arms under me and get more power, all the while feeling like I had a fleet of microscopic Roman soldiers jabbing their spears into my spine.

Eventually the pain got so bad that I started crying a little bit, and at that point I called my dad, who was watching football in the basement. Once he got upstairs he told me to try moving in several different directions to see how we could get me up. Every single movement was AGONY. I cannot adequately describe how badly this hurt.

So at this point I'm sobbing and hysterical. Finally he gets me to roll (literally, just like flop over) onto my back, and he and my mom pulled me up to standing (this whole ordeal took about half an hour, by the way). Once I was standing, I couldn't breathe; I couldn't move; I couldn't speak; I just stood there gasping for air like a dumb fish. A big dumb fish. It was terrifying and unreasonably painful. Like, I cannot adequately get across just how much pain I was in.

Dad called the ER, and we drove down there (Side note: super proud of myself for being able to hobble to the car in my state). My parents are trying to ask me things in the car about where it hurts and all the things a concerned parent should ask, and I responded in two words or less, sounding like what I would imagine people sound like when they just got done running a marathon.

Dat hospital bracelet doe

I had also taken a 5mg of valium, because when I say I was hysterical, I was fucking HYSTERICAL. I was shaking partly from the pain, but also partly because I was panicking myself half to death. And even with 5 mg of valium in my system, my pulse was still at 98, and my blood pressure was...um, real high. Like I'm not even going to say it because it's embarrassing.

Anxiety is fun.

So what actually happened is that I tore a ligament between my iliac crest and sacrum, so the joint moved ever so slightly out of place and got all inflamed, and shit went down. You know the rest.

Dat joint doe

I received two shots with three medications altogether that went into my muscles and made my arms quite sore. 

Dat needle bruise doe

I have also received a lovely cocktail of medications including steroids, muscle relaxers, and what is essentially souped up ibu profen.

Dat medication cocktail doe

Apparently this is going to happen to me a few more times in my life, so I should probably go ahead and just get one of those life alert buttons. You know, the ones from the commercials where 90-year-old grandmas say, "Help! I've fallen, and I can't get up!"

Because I'm 90.