The Fear Factor

5:15AM. I wake up to throbbing pain on my lower back. I get up gingerly to go to the bathroom to relieve myself. Slowly I make my way back to the son’s room—long vacant since he moved out two years ago. It is a room where I sleep at night to escape the deafening snores of my hubby. As I try to go back to sleep, the pain on my back continued to bother me to the point that it’s excruciating to turn over. Fearing that it would get worse, I decided to go to my hubby. But it had become too painful to get out of bed. I managed to get on the floor and wiggled like a worm to the door. With great effort, I turned the door’s knob and opened the door. With so much energy used up from the exertion, I just laid on my back and let the cool morning air fan over my drenched body.

I had now reached the Panic point with all sorts of frightening thoughts going through my head. I remembered the morning I found my son on the same floor more than 10 years ago. He had suffered a slipped disc. I remembered all the information on slipped disc that I had read up at that time. Would I need surgery, would I be incapacitated the rest of my life, would I ever….

I could hear my hubby snoring thunderously away in our room.

“J, J”, I called out to my daughter in the next room. “Help me.”

“What’s wrong?”, were her first words as she hurriedly opened her bedroom door. She immediately went to me and holding my hand, asked, “What’s wrong mommy?”

“I can’t get up,” I smiled weakly, trying to disguise my fear.

By then there was some stirring in the kitchen below and I knew that the helpers were up.

“Please call H & M to help me get up”, I instructed sensing that she was not strong enough to lift me.

She leaves me and calls out to them, “H, M. Come up and help mommy.” And in a blink of an eye, her legs buckle in front of her and she falls slowly to the floor. J had just fainted and I could not do anything but call out to her.

“J, J! Are you okay?”, was my terrified call to her.

By then the helpers were up and I could imagine the thoughts that were going on in their bewildered minds as they saw my daughter and I sprawled on the floor.



But just as quickly as J had fainted, she regained consciousness and slowly got up. It turned out that the sudden rush to get up made her light-headed. Getting a hold of her senses, she immediately called out instructions to the help on how to lift me off the floor and deposit me back into bed.



My daughter then gently eased my fears away and though the pain did not go away, I was no longer as frightened and had a better disposition . Fear turned out to be the worse enemy. For the rest of the morning, she ministered to my needs: hot water bag for my back, preparing my oatmeal and making me comfortable for the long rest up ahead. When it became evident that I would be alright, we started to laugh about the whole experience—specially her fainting spell. It was good to laugh again—even if it hurt like murder.

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Suffering from lower back pain is inherent in my family. Uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers and even my son could not escape from it. I have had several bouts of lower back pains since I was a teenager. Some mild enough to ignore and some needing doctor’s attention and long spells of bed rest. I know the general drill: heat to be applied to affected area; lots of rest on a firm mattress; no strenuous activities and some pain killers.

This latest experience thought me once again how precious health is and how fortunate that I have people around me that care.

I don’t know how long my recuperation will be this time but I resolve to give thanks for each day I wake up to feel the pain dissipate. I also pray that should it occur again, I will have more sense not to panic and be less dramatic.