Everything went completely silent for a moment. And that’s when my imagination stopped running wild and I could figure out what was happening to me. As I laid there the pain, the twinge through my butt cheek, the numbing down my leg….it was my back. I began to cry as I thought this can’t possibly be happening again! How does someone continually get injured in their sleep? I do not sleep next to a man every night, I do not sleep next to a dog, I do not sleep next to a child, it is almost inconceivable that I would rupture, puncture, split, crack, sprain, fracture or do any other injury stricken thing to myself during the night. And alas, here I was, yet again, laying in bed alone, unable to move and in pain. Just like five years prior, I dragged myself out of bed and maneuvered myself down the hallway much like that of the Human Centipede Movie. I crawled to the bathroom in search of Advil or Percocet’s or even a Demerol/Visceral shot, using my arms and elbows as my legs lay limp and dead like behind me. I found nothing. That’s what happens once you have teenagers, you hide your meds and when you need them you have no idea where they are. Think. THINK! I got tired quickly and got myself back into my bedroom where I lay in agony, but not enough agony to call myself an ambulance. So what did I do? Same thing I always did. I waited it out. I calculated the amount of pain I was in to the time I would have to wait for my parents to be awake. If I could make it one more hour, I’d be good and when that hour came and went I would tell myself I could wait one more. By 5am I could not wait any longer and I called. When a phone rings at 5 am there is virtually never good news behind it unless the night before you know someone went to the hospital to have a baby. I did not go to the hospital to have a baby the night before therefore when my mother answered the phone she already had the shrill of panic in her voice. “what happened?” is what came over the line. All I said was “It’s my back” there is something about talking to your mother when you are in pain or hurt or not feeling well that brings on a rush of emotion. I instantly began to cry and I’m not sure if it was the pain or merely that yet again I had to call for help. Send out an SOS to her and my father. I was feeling guilt along with pain and the combination is no good for anyone. I woke my older daughter and managed to have her get herself and my younger one out the door for school on their own as my parents and I figured out how to get me to the hospital. I believe that the only way the roadways would ever get fixed from potholes is if each person from the roadway commission had to drive in a car with extreme back pain, feeling every bump, every crack every swerve needed to be taken in order to try to make the commute a bit easier on the patient. We arrived at the emergency room and they had to bring me in on a stretcher cause I was now a contortionist cramped into a strange position that was only useful if I was going to hide in a suitcase on a trip to the Bahamas. Being that I am at the emergency room so often, I never wait. Really, I don’t. I am always taken immediately and administered tests and medication. I used to think it was because I went to the best hospital around, but in my later years I believe it was to shut me up. I don’t me them, by the time I had gotten to the hospital about four hours had passed and I was way past being a good patient. I was screaming I think. Interestingly enough I don’t really remember anything until he ER doctor arrived. Why do I remember that? Cause my mother said “ooh isn’t he handsome?” And began to make eyes behind his back to me. Really? I was in excruciating pain and all my mother could think of was how to get me a date with a doctor. So Dr. McDreamy says to me “If you can get out of that stretcher and take one step you can go home, otherwise I’m admitting you” Obviously this doctor didn’t know me very well, I never back down from a dare, a challenge, a bet. I don’t care if I lose, but I will always, always, always take the dare. So with the little strength I had left and the morphine induced courage I was feeling I went to get up. And I did get up, but when I fell, which I did……the good doctor was there to catch me.