Free Write Weekend Prompt Back Pain

This is my post for #freewrite weekend prompt back pain by @mariannewest

In 1995 Florida passed a ban on all gillnet fisheries, they told us if we were going to use nets we had to be over three miles in the ocean inshore of three miles we had to have our nets covered with a tarp and cables across it with a lock. My husband had been fishing since he was 16 years old and did not know any other types of fishing. We bought a bigger boat and hung the biggest net that we had ever used. The mesh was 3 and 1/2 inches and it was 150 meshes deep. We pulled this net back by hand, no power assisted gear. Most of the fish stay within the three-mile limit but Spanish mackerel would pull offshore when conditions were right.

We had a fish finder, a machine that marks fish, and we saw a school of mackerel and ran the net around them. When we were pulling the net back in the boat we could see the buoy on the other end bobbing up and down so we knew there was something big in it. A huge hammerhead had wrapped himself up in the end of the net. We would not have caught him if he would have hit the net anywhere but the end.

We are not like you think fishermen are we have never left gear in the water and we were not going to do it this time. When you read about nets lost or abandon that is not something a true freshman would do. Anyone can buy a net and run it out but true fishermen know the value of their gear and do whatever it takes to get the gear back, sorry I got on a little rant.

Back to the hammerhead, I was bent over the side of the boat helping my husband unroll this massive fish. Its hammers were three feet across and we could never see the entire shark. We would get the head up and unrolled then the tail end but it was so long we could not see both ends at once. It took 45 minutes to unroll him. When we finally got it out, I sat down and told my husband my back hurts and he said yes his did, too.

The next day my back still hurt but was able to go fishing. As the day went on the back pain got worse until I could not stand it and we had to come in. I made an appointment with a chiropractor, I saw him for two weeks and the back pain was getting worse instead of better. I went to my next appointment in tears and told him he was not touching my back but I needed to know what kind of Dr. I needed. He made me an app with a therapy Dr. By the time I was to see him I was in so much pain that I stood in his office crying, I could not sit. They kept calling other people back and not saying anything to me, 2 people walked out, one told my husband that it was BS that they did not call me back there. Finally they called me back and gave me a massage and told me to make another appointment, I went to the next appointment and they did the same, by this time the pain was so bad all I could do is crawl on the floor and my husband had to help me on the toilet and I could not go pee. I would sit there with a full bladder and could not push the pee out. I would cry until I guess gravity would make it come out.

I had this so called Dr. refer me to someone else and that is how I ended up with the Dr. who has helped me, he is a pain management Dr. He did scans and found that I tore three discs but I tore them from the inside to the outside. He did this procedure called radiofrequency ablation, it is where they burn the nerves and seals the rips. It help for several months but because I will not quit working like I do so I retore them. He said there is surgery but then he told me if I do the surgery there is a good chance I will not be able to get off the couch. So with pain meds, I live with the back pain.

I think I am lucky because if I was born 100 or so years ago I would not be able to do the things that I can do with the meds.

On a good note, my husband caught 170 bait today, yaaaa for him. I went fishing and caught 54 pounds of trout, 27 head.