Cinlach is getting pretty fucking sick of hospitals.

Ok, ok…so I’ve been really quiet recently.

But considering I’ve been working like a freakin’ madman since October I feel I deserve a little slack.

But that’s not what we’re here for is it?

Nope…I’ve got a cautionary tale to share with you all, but it’s always best to begin at the beginning.

About 5 weeks ago I started having tightness in my extreme lower back, and a pulling sensation down into the back of my leg.

Now a normal person would’ve taken notice of this…and seeing that I am a normal person, notice is what I took.

I mentioned it to my wife, who suggested I take a couple of anti-inflammatory over the counter painkillers to help shrug it off.

This sounded like a fantastic idea not only to myself but to my left leg as well, and so the self-medicating began.

Things started slowly, with the pain migrating down my left leg, into my knee and finally down into my calf muscle. But sure enough, within a couple of days things seemed to be headed back to normal thanks to my new friends called “Advil” and “Liqui-gels”.

Then comes last Friday…

My grandmother hasn’t been doing too well lately and the decision was made to put her in the hospital for possible surgery. The only problem being that surgery is a bad thing for her. Her last surgery had her literally dying on the operating room table…she had a near-death experience and everything. That’s some scary shit right there.

To top it off, after that surgery, she developed blood clots in her lungs and nearly died AGAIN.

Her doctor then informed her that most likely the next surgery she had would be her last and has completely forbidden any for her over the last 15 years.

Well the problem is that if this surgery ended up being necessary, and she chose not to have it, then she would die. And of course, if she did have it she would most likely die. So things were more then just a little stressful over the last couple of days leading up to the first big Cinlach medical breakdown of 2007.

Since I’d been working like some sort of fucking lunatic for the last 5 months, and I knew that this month would be “lighter”…if you can call something “lighter” when it still means you have more work then you can theoretically do in a given 8 hour period…I decided to be a completely selfish prick and take off early last Friday afternoon to accompany my Mom up to the hospital to see my Grandmother.

You know, given that it might be one of the last times I got to do so…I kinda felt it was important. Silly me.

So after clocking out, I made my way to my mother’s 1998 Saturn…henceforth called the Saturn Shoebox of Torture.

I contorted myself into her car and experienced a level of pain I hadn’t had the pleasure of being aquainted with in quite some time. We then took off to my house to pick up my brothers.

I managed to remove myself from the car…and then got back in again when it was time to go. More pain…same places.

We get to my grandmother’s house to feed her dogs…I’m back out of the car, then back into the car.

We head to the hospital…I get out of the car and receive the best news of the day…no surgery for grandma. Then, god help me…it’s time to get back in the car.

By this time I’m literally writhing in pain in the front seat of this demonic, torture machine from hell. I mean, damn…I’m hurting pretty severely but this point.

So off we go to eat supper, which I didn’t really feel up to but I knew everyone else was looking forward to our weekly family dinner out. So I sucked it up, put on my game face and made it happen. Once more into and then yet again out of the Saturn Shoebox of Torture.

I got the luxury of riding in my car on the way home…a 2001 Buick Century that thankfully doesn’t require you be a contortionist to get in or out of…but I had to get Sappy Chick to drive because I was still hurting from my 15 rounds with the Saturn Shoebox of Torture.

We skipped our traditional shopping trip to Target and I was ferried home after a long and uncomfortable day.

Once home, and free from the confines of what I’m now calling the world’s smallest passenger vehicle, my back and leg improved immensely.

When it was time for bed, I more humorously then omniously said to Sappy Chick, “Let’s just hope I can get up in the morning”. Ha, ha, ha…very fucking funny God.

Let’s say I didn’t sleep well and leave it at that…I tossed and turned and just couldn’t get comfortable. My back, leg, knee and now ankle were still apparantly pretty pissed off about our sojourn in Mom’s Saturn. My leg hurt so much that the middle three toes of my left foot were numb. That can’t be a good thing…can it?

At 5am, I got up to go pee and was greeted by a level of pain that I honestly was simply not prepared for. I couldn’t bend over to open the toilet seat…I had to use my right foot to raise the seat. Thats classy right there.

I did my business, and rapidly (or as rapidly as possible) hobbled my way back to bed…a few minutes later I had to go again, only this time because my stomach was rolling due to the pain. I eased myself onto the toilet…took care of “the business” at hand and reached with my right hand for the toilet paper on my left side.

I gasped as I turned.

My vision went white and I nearly passed out. Welcome to a new level of pain…one never dreamed of or imagined before. Welcome to the main event folks. This made the kidney stone of 1998 seem like a splinter.

I quickly realized I was fucked…really fucked…majorly fucked. I couldn’t so much as pull my underwear back up. What to do, what to do?

I somehow managed to finish up and hobbled to the medicine drawer in our kitchen to find solace from my new friends in the form of 3 Extra Strength Advil Liqui-Gels. Hoping against hope that if I laid back down and gave them time to work I’d be ok. Sadly, my new friends decided they had better things to do.

After laying in bed for an hour and a half, fighting tears of pain I realized that THIS…this singular moment…was as good as I was going to get. I was at the bottom of the pain mountain and sooner instead of later I was heading back to the summit as a passenger on a fast trolley.

I woke Sappy Chick…and as I begged her to take my to the Emergency Room, I began to cry like a baby. I was near-hysterical.

Without so much as a word or complaint, she got up and started getting dressed…I figured I needed to do the same. Since it hurt to so much as look at my feet, socks were completely out of the question, so I blindly rammed my feet into a pair of jeans and pulled a ratty t-shirt over my head.

I made my way down my hall to let my Mom know what was going on and where we were going. More crying, more hysterics…all from me of course. God, I’m such a manly man.

As my Mom walked me up and down the hallway, through the kitchen and living room while I cried and gasped for air between the intense stabbing pains throughout my left leg, Sappy Chick finished getting ready and then the 2 of them somehow were able to get me out of the house and lowered into the car.

My thoughts of the Emergency Room visit to come were not pleasant. I was expecting to wait several hours behind all manner or mangled motherfuckers who made me look like I had a blister or a headache. “Oh I’m so sorry your leg hurts Mr. Cinlach, but I have to remove a hatchet from some dude’s face…we’re going to have to get you to wait over in the Pussy Waiting Room. Someone will be over soon with your blankee.”

As were headed up the road, my wife tells me, “I’m taking you to Hillcrest.” Now, I have absolutely no idea where the hell that is. As it turns out, we have a hopsital in Simpsonville. Who knew?

By this point I was ready to go anywhere…take me to a med-school. Let the students have a look, how much worse could it possibly be then what I was already going through?

When we got to Hillcrest I was stunned to see there were NO cars there…we actually wondered if they were open. We got parked near the ER and walked into a totally empty lobby. We filled out a form and waited about 10 minutes for a Nurse to call us back.

I was placed into a room immediately, filled out my forms and was admitted to the hospital all within the span of 20 minutes.

The doctor came in, examined me and said…”You have all the classic signs of Sciatica”.

For those of you unfamiliar with the joy that is the sciatic nerve…click here.

A nurse came in, gave me a shot of painkillers and one of steroids (which I wasn’t thrilled about, but took nevertheless) and let me sit to enjoy the best the pharmacy had to offer.

The steroid made my right leg hurt just like my left leg and the painkiller only made me extremely nauseous. Go me…like I needed anymore fucking whimsy in my life at that particular point and time.

I laid in a near torpor for who knows how long before the Doctor came back in with all my paperwork and a few restrictions…

No work for 4 days…hopefully that included Saturday and Sunday, because I really need to get back. However if I can’t do it then newsletters and shit are gonna have to wait a little while longer.

No lifting over 10 lbs for 5 to 7 days…so I guess I’ll be needing help in the bathroom a little longer. Come on, you know that’s funny.

And last, but not least, no extended sitting for 10 days. This is going to be a problem, especially considering all I do all day is sit and shuffle papers from one folder to another. I haven’t really figured out how I’m going to make that work yet. Nevermind the extended period of time I’ve been sitting writing this all out…we’ll keep that our little secret.

After I was released, I was actually so nauseous that Sappy Chick and I had to sit in the car for 45 minutes behind the Hospital because it was literally all I could do to keep from yakking while riding in the wheelchair the 50 feet it took to get me out to the loading area.

So here I sit…hopped up on pain meds alone at home.

Oh, by the way…did I mention today was my birthday?

Yeah…life’s just peachy. I took today and yesterday off in order to take care of things in case Grandma needed surgery. As it turned out I needed them for myself.

Luckily my Mom rocks and bought me Brisco County Jr. on DVD.

So the morale of the story I hinted at earlier? Don’t sit on your wallet.

That’s right…my fucking wallet was the damned culprit.

So if you’re a dude with wallet in his back pocket as you read this, take that son of a bitch out.

Buy a purse, buy a fanny pack, get an organizer…ANYTHING.

I’ll be buying my wallets from the ladies department from now on. Maybe I could find something that matches my eyes and will go with all my outfits for under $40?

It could happen…