Grandma Henke

Spasm is a funny word but it’s not a funny sensation.  When they hit in my back I wasn’t really doing anything strenuous, just standing up from my computer chair. I found myself about 5 inches from the seat … unable to get back down or finish standing up. No turning to the left or right, just frozen in space.   By bedtime it was even worse.  I didn’t want to keep Lynn up with my moans and twitches so I drugged myself with muscle relaxants and a pain pill and gathered my pillow and blanky to try to get comfortable on the lazy boy recliner in the small sitting room.

The chair sits in the corner, flanked on either side by a love seat and another recliner. There is no room to spare. In the dark it looked like a big old lap waiting to rock me into slumber land. I fluffed up my pillow and gingerly lowered myself into the recliner’s open arms, foolishly thinking the night was about to get better. In order to get positioned just so, you have to pull the lever to raise your legs and then lean forward and fall back with your shoulders so your feet will go up and your head will go down.   Because of my pain I knew I only had one chance of getting my feet up so I gave it an extra effort.  Well, my feet went high enough alright … and my head couldn’t have been lower … because in an instant I was laying flat on my upper back with my head wedged tight into the corner of the room, my nightgown around my face, and my feet and legs sticking straight in the air.

This would have been a predicament without the muscle spasms, due to the lack of maneuverability, but with the muscle spasms AND no room to maneuver I knew I was in trouble. Both the doors to the bedroom and the door to the sitting room were closed but I foolishly thought maybe I could make enough noise to wake up Lynn. I yelled and yelled and yelled.  I pounded on the wall with my right hand until it got sore and my shoulder ached, then I pounded on the wall with my left hand until it got too sore and that shoulder ached … still nothing.   After about an hour the drugs I’d taken were really starting to kick in a little and I thought, “Well now, this isn’t SO bad … at least my back doesn’t hurt when I hold still.   I’ll just sleep like this. ”

It is really hard to sleep with your legs perpendicular to your torso, even under the influence of drugs, and besides that I was finding it harder and harder to breathe. I was starting to wheeze and whistle.  “Whistle!” I thought!    “I’ll whistle really loud and Lynn will hear me!” I whistled and whistled and whistled and this time Ozzy came running and barking.  I thought, “Oh good! Lynn will hear Ozzy barking and get up!”  But Ozzy quit barking when he realized I wasn’t a burglar.

Shortly, something else started to bother me. With my feet straight in the air for over 2 hours now, the swelling from my feet was running into my bladder! I tried to ignore it but soon I knew I would not last the night without ruining my nice chair. The only thing within reach was the kitty scratch tower and it was in front of the metal doors to the closet. I started banging it into the doors and it created such a ruckus I knew Lynn would have to wake up and save me. He didn’t but all of the dogs in the neighborhood started barking.

Finally, I knew I would have to endure the excruciating pain of twisting my back or die from lack of oxygen or drowned in my own pee.    I am like a turtle on its sore back. A very LARGE turtle whose legs are losing feeling and whose every move results in excruciating muscle spasms of the lower back.   I am wedged in by furniture & walls.

You will just have to imagine the rest …  how I got from my back, over the arm of the chair onto my side on a little triangle of floor.   It wasn’t a pretty sight … or sound.  Now instead of being on my back with my feet straight in the air I was in the fetal position with my nose to the wall. I was wedged in there like a full term baby … breech … and I still can’t breathe and I am in a full sweat.

Twenty minutes later I managed to get from side to all fours and all that remains is for me to stand up. You know, you have to be able to get your feet underneath you to stand on them. My hair is wringing wet, my face is beat red and I am panting for air … but finally I am on my feet and can shuffle, bent over from pain, to the bedroom where I lean over the bed and loudly yell, “LYNN WHY DIDN’T YOU ANSWER ME!”    He finally heard me!  He jumped three feet off the bed, ending up in a sitting position face to face with a wild demon in a purple nightgown glaring at him.    “Wha … Wha … What??”   It was over three hours since I gingerly shuffled away from our bed and he had not even missed me.   

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