I have had this weird issue with my back on and off for the last 15-20 years or so. I imagine it like a pinched nerve and the doc says that is indeed what it could be but that because it isn’t associated with any incident in particular there is no real way of knowing without exploring deeper. I am reluctant to explore deeper. So I just put up with it while it lasts which has been for a week or two. Incidents have occurred at odd times. At one point I was convinced it happened while waking up to pee and sitting on the toilet. Then once it happened getting off the bus. Yesterday it happened while running. I had just started when all of a sudden I felt a cramp in my back on the left side, pretty high up near the lungs. It felt like something I could run through, like maybe a stich or something. But as I continued I started to experience significant pain with each breath. As much as I het to I stopped and turned around, heading home on the injury walk of shame. Actually, there is nothing shameful about accepting an injury as a run stopper. It is more of an honorable thing IMHO. It takes a bit of getting past your ego to admit defeat, but it is for the best.

It feels like some sort of muscular strain, really more of a cramping. Then the residual effect is a stiffness in the back and a continuation of the cramping pain. I don’t know if it is ms related or not. I suppose I should talk to the nuero about it, maybe get some muscle relaxers. I still have some old ones from when I got hit by a car years ago, so maybe I’ll take one of those today and see what happens. Also I have some vicoden laying around as well that helped last night. I have rehearsal tonight that I really need to go to so I don’t want to take anything more than advil which seems to work pretty well. Not gonna be fun lugging around that big bari sax!

So I am taking a week or so off (yes another week) to try to recover from this. I am sure I’ll be fine and hopefully back on the roads sooner rather than later.