To The Hell and Back!

Ludhiana, February 27, 2011: On a bright sunny morning, when the world was getting ready for the day, I awakened to a severe attack of back ache. As I painfully dragged myself out of the bed and bent down to pick up my cell phone that had come off the bed accidentally, a sudden clack of the bones in the lower back left me incapacitated of returning to my original sitting position.   

The body was vulnerable, and felt like a mashed banana kept for too long to be edible. The pain was adamantly ascending and refused to leave me. My lower back seemed to be giving way. I could just not stand up. Neither could I sit. Worse, I could not even lie down. The pain was getting worse with every passing second and the slightest of movements led to a shooting pain down the spine. Breathing, too, became hurtful. My body was crashing and I did not know what was happening.

The time was 8 am and the day was bright and welcoming. I tried to lift my body up from the bed, but in vain. After a few (seemingly eternal) minutes, the brain leaped out for a trip down the hill, leaving behind the half-dead body to suffer and face the misery alone. Despite the piercing pain, the body was like a phantom walking through the dark and dingy labyrinths of an underground ditch. The sting was crossing barriers and slithering upwards towards the left.

I managed to drag my weary frame back into the bed with great difficulty, lying down on my right side like a dead woman. I fervently evoked the fairy of dreams to descend upon my heavy heart and resurrect me to a healthy, pain-free world once again.

The next couple of hours passed in a daze, caught between awakened reality of the shooting pain and the sleepy desire to break free of the demon of death. The phones kept ringing but nothing was being registered. The head was still empty. There was no fear. Only a fervent desire to be with my loved ones back home in Chandigarh. 

Finding me absent from the breakfast table, my benign landlady came upstairs to peep into my room. To my pleasant surprise, my vocal chords were still hail and hearty though bogged down by the sudden assault of uninvited devil of pain. Sensing trouble, the lady barged into the room to assist me with water, food and pain killers. Request for rest in solicitude worked well with the gentle woman. It was 10.30 am, she whispered before leaving.

Falling back into the blissful daze, I was trying to make sense of the situation but the pain had scattered the grey cells in multiple directions like mercury from a broken thermometer. Incoherent, half thoughts darted through the empty skull leaving me exhausted. Thankfully, sleep descended and apart from a few phone calls, nothing could succeed in disturbing my deep slumber. 

When I woke up it was dark outside but inside, things were looking brighter. The body had now got used to the roving pain and the mind was now back, fresh from a long walk along the sun-kissed beach side of numbness, it seemed. It was 8 pm. Gosh! I had slept the entire day. There were 85 missed calls on the cell phone, including several from the boss, who had no clue about my unannounced absence from the office.

I could now manage to sit up and even walk around a bit with some difficulty. The pain that was so harrowing in the morning had now mellowed down to naughty serpentine in the spine. 

Assisted with supper in my room by the motherly landlady, I soon fell asleep probably because of the muscle-relaxing pain killers and sedatives. 

Next morning was misty but my heart was happy. I had come out alive and triumphant from a trip to the hell and back. The mind and body were now comfortable with the pain.

A visit to the doctor and several tests revealed that the long-neglected slip disc had decided to make its presence felt the previous day. The accompanying pain would be my companion for months now till some relief would set in. The slipped-disc shared a life-long bond not only with me but with the horrible pain as well.

Evening was happier and the return journey back home, though painful, gave me boundless joy, hope and positivity. 

The next three months were spent on the bed in front of the dancing figures on the television screen. The "rest" period was generously sprinkled with bitter pills, shots of painkillers, muscle relaxants, tingling calcium, iron supplements, fatty foods, fresh fruits, juices and of course, loads of attention, pampering and love from my doting parents. Frequent visitors brightened my otherwise gloomy days. 

Three months later, a Phoenix was born, and a happy one at that. The problem had subsided but could return if the back was unnecessarily troubled or ignored, warned the doctor. With a promise to be careful, the Phoenix was once again ready to celebrate life.