The Girl with the Bad Back

 Nothing to do but start at what I first remember, right? I don’t remember my back not hurting, really. And now, I guess, for most people, that’s not normal? And I mean, as a kid even. Back in the day, when I was a kid - we were the kids that weren’t allowed to sit on furniture if there were grownups needing it. So for the majority of my childhood, I sat on the floor or often slept on the floor at my grandparents or my aunts house. I distinctly remember one occasion, my brother and I were at my grandmother’s and we were watching Jaws and scaring each other pretty hard about it, enough that we were too scared to go to the bathroom alone (we were young) our mother came back from wherever she had been, and I remember asking if I could sleep on a recliner that night since my back was hurting. I don’t know how young I was, but I don’t think I was yet a teenager. I know that my back hurt all the time as a teenager. Boys were always offering those big body “hugs” to crack my back for me. Carrying a bag was always a struggle, and as I lived in San Francisco, we usually walked everywhere or took Muni — my back was Always killing me, even though I was 15, 16, 17 years old.

By the time I was 18, I was living on my own with a couple of roommates. We were the first of our friends to have an apartment, so our place was the place where everyone hung out. You could never do something like that now, but then, it was a Victorian on Clement with another group of teenagers who moved in upstairs from Southern California. I was working first at Pier 39 and then at a Hair Salon on Union St in Cow Hollow and going to City College. 

That first time, I don’t even know what I did, I didn’t DO anything particular or different than normal. For some reason I just couldn’t move. I was STUCK. I was in the living room of our apartment, I was on the floor and the only thing that was half way comfortable, was laying there with my legs up on the couch and with my back on the floor. My roommate was annoyed with me. We were all supposed to be going to a late night showing at Cobbs Comedy and he thought I was just complaining about my usual bad back thing, but this time it was different. I told everyone to go without me and after they left I crawled to my bedroom and lay in bed for days. For years I was upset that they got to see Robin Williams that night without me! He had come in to do a stand-up that night of his new material and I missed out! What actually happened to me, was I had herniated a disc in my back for the first time and I hadn’t realized it.