Back pain: who knew something was broken?

Several weeks ago, my wife was out on the riding mower, and it got stuck in a ditch. That happens a lot since our yard is a former farm with lots of ruts in it. After we pulled it out, she had a sore back, an often-times occurrence after we cut the grass at our age.

But this time it wouldn’t go away. When it got to the point where she couldn’t move due to the pain, we called an ambulance. The ER was the usual disorganized chaos. It the end they found a small fracture in a vertebra. They kept her five days. The reason is that her BP was sky-high. We kept telling them they were causing the blood pressure spike by taking her off all the meds she’d been taking up to then.

Finally, they believed us after apparently thinking we were nuts. The BP came down and they discharged her with a back brace, saying this was better than surgery. A friend lent us a walker. Now we have physical therapists stopping by and helping her.

I doubt she’ll be out on that riding mower again soon.

Malcolm