I started to feel a pain in my back on Sunday, October 3. There was no good reason for it, as far as I could tell. I hadn’t lifted anything incorrectly or slept on it funny. It just started to hurt. The pain gradually grew more intense over the next two weeks. On Saturday, Oct 16, I co-led a “Living on the Street” tour in center city Philadelphia for The King’s Jubilee. I barely made it up onto the platform to Mark’s place. I sat at his table and drank coffee while the rest of the tour hiked through the underbrush to visit Fred’s old camp. The pain had spread, so that now when I coughed, it felt like my kidneys hurt.
By Sunday, I was continuously miserable. That afternoon was our granddaughter Isabella’s birthday party in the park and I was useless to load or unload anything. Bethann made me promise to go to the chiropractor the next day. Monday morning, I called the chiropractor and my medical doctor. I got back to back appointments. First I went to the chiropractor. He examined me, doing that thing where he pokes his fingers on either side of my spine working his way up the back. He didn’t find anything seriously amiss, but one point where he touched on the left side in the middle of my spine caused excruciating pain. He did a minor adjustment and put heat on my back. He was mystified. There was no chiropractic cause for the kind of pain I was having.
I went on to see my doctor. She examined me. I told her of my experience at the chiropractor and that I was afraid it must be something in my organs, perhaps my kidneys, that was causing the pain. I gave a urine sample. there was no blood, so that made it less likely that it was my kidneys. She agreed that it did not seem musculo-skeletal in cause, but not sure, and ordered x-rays to be done the following day.
I was given a prescriptions for Valium for a muscle relaxant (since I am allergic to Flexiril) and Percocet for the pain.