THIS IS THE MOST consequential election in U.S. history. The fate of the earth hangs in the balance. But it has nothing to do with trampolines, so I’m pretty much ignoring it until I can walk upright again. Despite a lifetime of wisdom that should have warned me from my approaching folly, I succumbed to the pleading of a 9-year-old to join her on a contraption that, not unlike the guillotine, probably resulted in the demise of its inventor. (I can’t confirm this, but it would have served him or her right.)
Before you roll your eyes in complete lack of sympathy, it must be stated that this particular granddaughter is not to be denied. Unlike, say, your daughter or granddaughter, whose unremarkable lives (in comparison) will likely not be interrupted by moments of excellence or distinction, this one is very special, because, you know, she’s my granddaughter. A brilliant intellect, an accomplished artist and athlete, a passionate lover of the natural world, when she says “jump,” one simply asks, “how high?” And on a trampoline, “how high” can be considerable.
The fact that she is my only granddaughter is also significant. Yes, I have a granddog, Abbey, from another daughter in a faraway city. But when I’m visiting, I have yet to reach détente with this particular Schnauzer mix, because she refuses to move from the bottom step of a stairway I use in my frequent nightly trips to the bathroom. Her loud bark shatters the calm of the quiet evening, alerting everyone of my umpteenth nocturnal passage and causing me to jump—as if on a trampoline—and strike my head on the low ceiling. Yes, there is no love lost between us. I even hear murmured growls in the background when I speak with my daughter over the phone. (Right back at ya, Abbey.)
But back to this trampoline, which I reluctantly crawled up on and began a set of small vertical movements calculated for minimal physical risk. I did not spin nor flip. I did not bounce from side to side. Nor did I yield to the temptation to display skills perfected as a young man that were so legendary that Bob Dylan, had he passed through my small Indiana town at the time, would have been inspired to write “Mr. Trampoline Man.” No, I merely jumped straight up, and came straight down. My dismount may have been a bit showy—I stuck an Olympic-worthy two-point landing—and it probably reduced my height by a good two inches. But I walked away feeling no pain. That was on a Thursday.
When Friday morning came, had there been roosters nearby, their trademark greeting of the new day would have been drowned out by my own crows of agony. I couldn’t move without my back seizing. A phone call to my HMO started the process of Zoom conferences with a nurse practitioner, then a doctor, and, finally, the specialist who diagnosed me as, in medical parlance, being old and foolish.
Turns out, because of my abiding love for my granddaughter, I now have anterior wedging of the T12 and L1 vertebrae. (Interestingly, each of the vertebrae have specific identifications including C1-C7, T1-T12, L1-L5, S1-S5, and one called Larry.)
My treatment included a number of floor-based exercises but did not, unfortunately, include instructions on how to actually get back up from the floor without cursing. So, I invented bed-based exercises, which don’t seem to help but are much more comfortable and often lead to naps. I like naps.
And naps can help us survive this election. If it turns out the way you most fear, I’m already feeling your pain, specifically in the neighborhood of T12 and L1. (But Larry is fine.)
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