“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometime taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”
- Anne Bradstreet (1612–1672), British/American poet
It was about a week ago that my sciatica worsened. I’d had it since around 2008 and waited till 2015 to have surgery. That intervention helped perhaps a little, but not substantially.
Around the middle of last week, the sciatica materially increased. Previously, it had involved mostly the right hip and right lower extremity. This time it was almost exclusively on the left. I scoured the recesses of my brain, trying to recollect something that I might have done to aggravate it. But I could think of nothing. I was working full time, which involves a lot of sitting, but that was my custom, and I continued to use a padded cushion.
Some weeks before, I’d whacked my left knee in a shower, but I was quite sure I’d not broken anything. I might have damaged something internally, but that would require an MRI scan to diagnose, which would have also revealed bone bruise, something I was quite sure I sustained.
I didn’t have even plain x-rays or an MRI scan, even though I’m a radiologist (recalling the cobbler’s kids not having any shoes).
Then, more recently, in dim light, at night, I bumped the same knee again on a dresser handle. Not quite as hard this time, and in a slightly different place, but the same knee.
And I had also perhaps an unusual amount of stress around this time:
My home internet was out for over 3 weeks. A minor aggravation in the big scheme of things, but an annoyance nevertheless. Several calls to my Internet provider (which shall remain nameless; my experience with different providers has been similar, which recalls a comment made by a relative: “They’re all crooks.”).
There had even been a service visit (in my physical absence; I was told my daughter’s presence wasn’t needed), but there was no follow up. Several calls through an exhaustive and exhausting menu with annoying accompanying music found their way to anonymous persons who revealed only their first name and often spoke accented English (“I’m going to personally see that this problem is fixed”; “We’ll be sure to contact you within 24–48 hours”) were fruitless.
Of course they didn’t call back.
And when I called and asked to speak with a given individual, they seemed to be located elsewhere in the world. That individual remained elusive.
It seemed like a lopsided game, one intended to wear the customer down.
Under my breath I murmured, “You did wear me down. I give up. But I still have no Internet.”
My seemingly only viable alternative was to switch providers, which I was loath to do. Reviews of other Internet providers in my geographic area were no better.
My latest water bill was 50% higher than prior bills.
I sent a text message to my neighbor, asking him about his water bill. In response, he mentioned a possible water leak. He lives here full time (I’m away Sunday through Friday) and noticed water pooling near the street curb. Algae was growing. He suspected it’d be there awhile and had mentioned it to my landlord when the latter was here mowing the front lawn.
I recalled the autobiography of Gilda Radner, of “Saturday Night Live,” married to Gene Wilder, who was a funny lady but, not funny at all, tragically succumbed to ovarian cancer well before her time. She entitled her book: “It’s Always Something.”
Little did I know my troubles were far from over.
After a brief investigation of the house I rent yielded no obvious water leak, I decided to live with matters.
That night, after showering, I noticed an unusual skin lesion on my left hip. It resembled neither a typical zit nor insect bite. I applied some colorless iodine (which would have helped had it been a ripening zit) and went to bed.
The next day, as is my custom, I did a load of laundry.
When I went to unload the laundry onto my bed, the better to sort, I almost slipped. Looking down, I realized the bedroom carpet was wet. Immediately I knew there must be a slab leak (houses in this area are poured on concrete slabs; there is no subflooring or basement).
I went outside to turn off the water main valve.
When I returned, and tried to ascertain the source of the water, I found the adjacent master bedroom closet carpet contained even more water. I took some photos and sent them to my landlord, then took up the carpet and carpet pad from the closet.
With some effort, I laid the carpet and pad flat on the back patio concrete (they were heavy from water and my sciatica was still troubling). I then mopped up close to 2 gallons of water off the concrete floor of the closet.
I next addressed the bedroom carpet, drying it with old clean socks and small towels as much as possible. I propped up the carpet and turned an electric fan on it.
I prepared myself for the return drive to a different county in which I would work the forthcoming week.
I took a look at my left hip and was alarmed to discover that the skin lesion of the prior night had not only enlarged substantially, but had turned purple and the overlying skin had blistered and seemed about to pop. The closest adjective that came to mind was ‘pemphigoid.’
But there was no reason for me to have pemphigus.
On the way to work, I stopped at the urgent care center in an adjacent town that’s open 9–9 for walk-ins.
Although I had to wait awhile, the wait was worthwhile. I showed my skin lesion to the examining MD. By that time another adjacent, fresher lesion was evident. He said, “I think you have shingles.”
A 100-watt bulb alit in my head. Of course. That explained the earlier aggravated sciatica. Plus now, the skin lesions. I’d had chickenpox as a boy. He took a scraping for the lab and prescribed antiviral medication, steroids, and an analgesic.
I’m still taking Valtrex and Prednisone. It took several days for them to ameliorate the condition, which has been almost exclusively left sided. Several other skin lesions have developed, all below the waist and on the left. None have blistered other than the 1st, which did so before treatment.
It occurred to me later that things could have been worse. The leak (which has since been largely fixed; it is at times like this that I appreciate being a renter) could have developed while I was away, and the entire house, rather than a comparatively small area, could have flooded. Mold could have developed.
I surmise that the jerky water inflow to the water conserving clothes washer may have compromised the integrity of water pipes. There are any number of reasons they may have given way: shoddy initial workmanship, water sediment, etc.
Most people with shingles develop skin lesions plus neuropathy. But some have only one — skin lesions or neuropathy. Had I been one of those, the condition would have proven more difficult to diagnose (and treat).
It also occurred to me that the story/allegory of Job, one of my favorite books in Holy Writ, may not be unique. Who knows? A variant might play out in the lives of modern humans.
I don’t pretend to possess the purported virtue of Job, and the shingles I have, confined to one side of my body, pale in comparison with the boils that covered Job head to foot.
But there may be parallels.
We are given to understand that his was a special test case. He was a pawn in the chess game between the force of Light and that of Darkness. (A modern retelling of Job, entitled, “J. B.”, by Archibald MacLeish, may interest some of you).
But might some of us be similarly (if not as dramatically) subjected to tribulations to see how we will react?
The sun and rain also fall on both the just and the unjust. Perhaps not in equal measure, but both are recipients.
I grant this may be distortion of reality, and misinterpretation.
But current science acknowledges they don’t know why varicella (the chickenpox virus) lies dormant, sometimes for decades, only to attack the dorsal spinal ganglia and cause herpes zoster, or shingles, more often in the elderly and the immunocompromised.
Mysteries abound.
We now see through the glass but darkly, and dimly.
One might not put suffering and temptation in the same box.
But they are not unrelated.
At one point, Job’s unnamed wife (was she the mother of his future children, the ones he fathered after his ordeal?) told him, “Curse God and die.”
From some of his recorded ruminations, he may have been tempted to do just that.
But he didn’t, and was ultimately rewarded.
No more boils or other afflictions, and abundance greater than what he’d had before.
Much of life, at least at this stage, is not about winning. It’s about breaking even.
My Internet connection, now restored, is no better than it was, merely the same.
Once the water leak to my house is fixed, the water status will return to what it was before the leak. And the plumbing will continue to be subject to potential future leaks.
My body will not be stronger because of having developed shingles. Indeed, I will likely be more aware of developing them again (although many have them only the once).
Plus, about 20% develop a condition called post-herpetic neuropathy, which can linger for years and cause various degrees of debilitation.
My father was 74 when he passed; my mother 77.
I’m in between, age-wise.
Am I more deserving of longevity? I think not. If anything, less.
So, in the quiet of the night, when termites gnaw elsewhere, dark thoughts came and I wondered if I was indeed immunocompromised and something more inimical, like cancer, lurks and the shingles are merely a harbinger of worse things to come.
I soothed myself with the words of Lamentations 3:22: “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.”
In the time of King David, man’s lifespan was 3 score + 10. It has changed little since.
And I’ve already exceeded that. Anything above 70 is a bonus. The 13th of a baker’s dozen.
Meanwhile, thanks in no small part to my daughter, who waited dutifully at my house in my absence for the Internet provider serviceman, and my landlord, who still tends ongoing water issues, my recent problems, like sands in a desert, continue to blow away.
There may be admittedly new ones around the corner. Perhaps new dunes to surmount.
I’m not out of the woods yet with the shingles, and it may take years to know the final outcome.
But things could always be worse.
I’m grateful they’re not.
