Walking Wounded

On Wednesday when it was so hot I made the mistake of trying to carry a very large box a couple of blocks on a call for work. What I should have done is take the two boxes of parts out of the much larger box and carried them. It was a strain no matter how I carried the box, and the heat didn't help. I called it an early day as soon as I could since the effort in the heat made me dizzy and weak. Yesterday morning as I carried the same box from my truck into the depot to send back I felt the same muscles from the day before go rubbery. I shook it off. The box wasn't heavy at all, just large and cumbersome. Later as I was pulling my parts for the day I leaned over and picked up a stack of boxed parts - again not heavy - and twisted to put them aside so I could get my part from underneath. My back went 'sproing!'. I leaned on the stack of boxes with my left leg kinda at the weird angle it had been when my back went out, in sharp pain. Valerie asked me if I was injured, if I was ok. She knew I had 11 calls in my tank and no one else to take them. Oh, she was also worried about me... It took a bit but I was able to finally move to a wall and lean on it. Took longer before I could put weight on my left leg to walk. After about 15 minutes it eased enough for me to shuffle around and finish calling my clients and get ready to start the day. The head of the business where we get our parts carried my boxes out to the truck for me. Everyone else had to leave before I was near ready. I was able to finish 6 calls because 4 of them were in one building and Valerie get me her 2 wheeler to use for the day. The other 2 were across the street. Both Jeff and Valerie called me to see if I was ok, and Jeff had hurriedly finished his calls to come take mine if necessary.

Today I still have a catch in my back on the left side. I'm making notes of what movements I can't do right now to see what I need to work on strengthening. I know it is important that I stay in shape in order to do my job. I have gotten lazy. So, once I'm recovered I need to start the stretching and strengthening exercises again. Valerie did tell me about the time references to file a worker's comp claim, and said I should go to the doctor that day in case they wanted to do a drug screen which is fairly common now if you are injured on the job. I made the decision that it is muscle, and I'll just take it easy for a few days.