Aging and the questionable art — of not gracefully giving in — Lumbar spines, bad backs, neuromuscular issues — and sea kayaks

© 2020 Peter Free

 

05 February 2020

 

 

For the once aggressively athletic

 

Aging can be a battle between:

 

 

preserving the ability to move (at all)

 

and

 

risking damaging engagements with what we really want to do.

 

 

The pain principle

 

On the one hand, there's pain.

 

On the other, there's are "you're gonna be in real trouble" warnings.

 

Distinguishing between the two is challenging.

 

Especially so, as we get older and the simple pains of youth — and bad genes — turn into structure-toppling warnings that elderlyness often brings with it.

 

 

Below, an illustrating anecdote

 

It is intended to provide psychic companionship — to those struggling with similarly wistful areas of physical activity.

 

Sometimes, I have sadly discovered, being uncharacteristically sensible is the best way forward.

 

 

My sea kayak dilemma

 

When the military recently assigned my wife (and therefore me) to California, I thought that it would be a good time to buy a sea kayak.

 

Point Reyes and Mendocino waters are not so far away.

 

I mildly kayaked in youth and middle age:

 

 

Arctic Alaska

 

harbored British Columbia

 

and somewhat more recently

 

(meaning 15 or so years ago)

 

an easy-easy whitewater outing in Colorado.

 

 

What could go wrong now?

 

 

Distinguishing simple pain from serious warnings

 

"Your spine is trash," my (then) primary care physician told me last year.

 

He was blunt because he knew that medical training had equipped me to interpret this most recent MRI.

 

Spine and I have been on intimate terms for decades. Arms and legs have been negatively affected to sometimes incapacitating degrees.

 

Even before the spine-trash conversation, I had been picking up my left leg with both hands. To move it where it needed to go, while negotiating Colorado peaks' boulder fields.

 

And then there are the times that both legs go into spasms. I fall down, if not leaning on trekking poles. Those happy implements have (three times) saved me from plunging off near-vertical heights.

 

Directly related to the sea kayak issue, is the fact that I had neurosurgery a few years ago.

 

It ameliorated months of 8 to 9 pain levels on the Defense and Veterans Pain Rating Scale.

 

The only thing that holds this repair in place is scar tissue. Break that loose, and a repeat of those torturing weeks is likely.

 

A sensible person would be mildly cautious:

 

 

My wife is a physically sensible person.

 

I am, generally speaking, not.

 

 

 

The sea kayak anecdote

 

Last week, I got serious about investigating the sea kayak issue:

 

 

Would I be able to sit in it — for even an hour?

 

Would I be able to sustain the torso rotation necessary to paddle?

 

 

Rotation has always been an issue:

 

 

Put weight at the end of my extended arms and have me rotate laterally.

 

Presto-boom — incapacitating lumbar inflammation results.

 

Not much walking for days after.

 

 

To test the kayak possibility, I decided to simulate a paddling position.

 

To generate fatigue, I went on an uphill bike ride.

 

Then, I came home and imitated a kayaking position by sitting flat on the floor.

 

Posterior pelvis propped against a loveseat base:

 

 

I lasted four minutes initially.

 

Eleven minutes with furious determination.

 

 

Lumbar spine's radiating left leg pain was vigorously informing me that this is not a good idea.

 

 

Still stubborn

 

The next day I went to the kayak store.

 

Its knowledgeable owner put me in the boat that he said would be most adjustable. For someone in my dubious condition.

 

Ever polite, he did not use the word, dubious:

 

 

I lasted about five minutes.

 

I had to lean backward in the kayak to take some the strain off my lower spine.

 

 

Sweat appeared on my forehead:

 

 

The Defense Department pain scale flashed across my mind.

 

I remember staring at in in the neurosurgeon's waiting room.

 

Discovering, to my significant surprise, that my personally bestowed 3 and 4 ratings (out of 10) — made to physicians and physical therapists — were actually 8s and 9s — according to the Department of Defense.

 

Oh. Perspective.

 

 

An aside for medical providers

 

The above anecdote should remind medical providers that they have to provide patients with visual scales.

 

Otherwise, patient-physician language is not harmonized.

 

In my case, without a reference point, I always understate unpleasantness.

 

My imagination can always generate higher levels of potential horribleness. Ergo, my understated 3s and 4s.

 

In my (now reasonably extensive) experience, proportionately few providers pay enough attention to this issue — when it comes to evaluating pain and physical impediments.

 

 

A related medical point

 

I should note that pain (of 8-9 magnitude) is reportedly comparatively uncommon from compressed nerve roots.

 

I have many other radicular symptoms and radiculopathies. None of them approach such high levels of discomfort.

 

The operating neurosurgeon told me (after surgery) that a vertebral disk fragment had been crushing the most pain-sensitive portion of the affected dorsal root ganglion.

 

 

Still at the kayak store

 

By way of problem-solving the paddling issue, we tried pad-assisted kneeling in a solo canoe.

 

That was a relief. This I could still do:

 

 

At least until my knees give out.

 

Which, I knew from previous years (of canoeing and long-damaged joints) would not be all that long.

 

Pad or not.

 

 

The youthful shop-owner suggested that even he only lasts an hour, while paddling on his knees.

 

"At my age," I volunteered, smiling, "an hour would be an accomplishment."

 

 

Still stubborn

 

Despite contradicting evidence — "sea kayak" was still stuck in top position on my pre-croak list.

 

At home that afternoon, naproxen trotted to a partial rescue. It is the last (somewhat effective) NSAID that I do not yet display potentially life-threatening reactions to.

 

The next day, I felt not so bad.

 

Yay.

 

 

Maybe, I can still do this sea kayak thing?

 

I simulated the 90 degree seated position on the floor again.

 

This time even more realistically:

 

 

thin cushion to simulate the Dagger Stratos 14.5's seat height

 

belt around knees to imitate the paddle boat's narrowness

 

legs bent upward, to the adjusted reach of foot braces —

 

and with

 

accompanying pretend paddle strokes

 

complete with vigorous torso rotation

 

for a whole (!!) hour.

 

 

The fact that walking was problematic . . .

 

. . . (after the pretend kayaking ended) did not deter me from optimism.

 

My motto has always been:

 

 

Never stop, when there's an opportunity to go significantly too far.

 

 

Depressingly

 

One generally pays for excess.

 

Old more than young.

 

 

That's the point to this story

 

After these simulations, I am experiencing non-background radicular symptoms.

 

These imitate the initially mild onset of the previous (level 8 and 9) pain episode.

 

Since that episode lasted — continuously 24/7 — for three months until surgery, the renewed prospect is a bit concerning.

 

 

Inevitable conclusions

 

This is not simple pain.

 

It's a warning.

 

(If not already appreciable damage.)

 

I have gone too far again.

 

 

How does one discover limits, unless one overshoots?

 

I never have figured that out.

 

I always go too far.

 

Today, leg and foot on smoldering fire, I hope that this will not progress, as it did last time.

 

Repentant "Yikes" reproach my mind.

 

 

The moral? — "Ain't no kayaks in your old-guy future, Pete"

 

My paddling simulations' results are definitive.

 

Dispositiveness (as lawyers call it) becomes a silver lining.

 

Now, we only wait to see what penalty those happy-dark clouds rain down.

 

Aging gracefully takes the proper attitude. I have not yet discovered it.

 

Maybe you're in the same boat. Welcome, friend.

 

Ambiguity embraces most of us.

 

I am, fortunately, characteristically grateful that I can move at all.