[title subtitle=”words: Stoney Stamper
Images: courtesy April and Stoney Stamper”][/title]
My back hurts. My back has hurt for about seven months now, and after my doctor’s visit last week, it doesn’t look like that will change anytime soon. I’ve had back problems for more than fifteen years now, following a pretty bad accident I had in 2000. An 11,000-pound horse trailer fell on top of me, literally. It’s a long story for another day, but it left its mark on my body. Normally, a visit to the chiropractor, and maybe a cortisone shot or two, helps, and I can get back to normal, or at least what I consider normal.
But this last November, on Thanksgiving, I woke up with a backache. Nothing out of the ordinary, so I limped around my mother-in-law’s house all day, took some Advil and moved around as slowly as possible. A week later I went to the chiropractor and got twisted, popped and cracked, but still I was having a really hard time. The steroid shots that generally got me over the hump did absolutely nothing. The pain in my back and the pain that shot down my right leg was different than it had been in the past and was excruciating.
The doctor decided that I should get some x-rays and an MRI, so I did. After the MRI, they said they’d call me the following week with the results. However, before I even got home from the MRI, they had called me to tell me that I had a severely herniated L4-L5 disc and that not only had it herniated, but it had fragmented, so there was a random piece of my disc floating around loose in my spinal canal. Although it was a relief to find out what was wrong, having back problems of this magnitude was a very scary thing. I mean, I know I’m getting older, but I’m not exactly ready to hang up my spurs just yet. The best parts of my days aren’t spent inside. My favorite thing to do is work outside on our property. Building fence, cutting brush, working horses, mowing, weed-eating. Anything outside is where I find my happy place.
So, as my wife April and I sat in the surgeon’s office listening to him tell me the seriousness of my back issues, a huge dose of reality came crashing down on me, just like that 11,000-pound horse trailer had. He told me, “You’ll never be one hundred percent again. You’ve got a lot of damage in there, but we can make you better. However, you are going to have to slow down. You aren’t going to be as strong as you once were.” Maybe I’m a little bit slow, but it wasn’t until he said those words to me that I realized exactly what was happening to me. I was getting old.
…if I didn’t do all those stupid things when I was young, then I wouldn’t have any funny stories to tell when I’m old. And there’s nothing I enjoy more than telling funny stories.
Getting old… I had always heard my parents and grandparents talk about it, but had never knowingly felt it firsthand. All of my life, I have pushed myself to the limit in just about anything that I’ve ever done. I’ve broken bones. I’ve had concussions. I’ve pulled muscles and gotten stitches. I had wrestled, played baseball, football, and run track. As an adult, before I married April and had kids, I lived hard. I spent too much time in saloons, late nights, with little to no sleep. And as they always do, people would tell me I needed to slow down. My parents and siblings worried about me, but I would always laugh and shrug off their advice as nonsense. I knew what my body could handle better than they did, right? One of my coworkers once said about me, “Stoney doesn’t burn the candle at both ends. Stoney just throws the whole candle into a bonfire.” We all laughed.
But now, as I sit here typing this, I can feel my hip aching. It’s a dull ache that stems from that same horse trailer accident nearly sixteen years ago, and I think to myself, It’s going to rain today. My joints are aching. And then I know it’s true. I am getting old. The life expectancy of an American male is seventy-eight years, and by those numbers, I’m almost exactly middle-aged. My best days are behind me. Now, I know that I’m not really old. But by the same token, I know that I’ll never again be quite as strong as I once was. I know that I can’t work eighteen hours out in the sun, hauling thousands upon thousands of bales of hay, like I once did. And if I get bucked off a horse, I don’t bounce back quite as quickly as I used to. Of course, this hurts my cowboy pride. It’s hard to admit that I am not the man I was ten years ago.
And then I think back to all of the times that I was told to slow down, or to be careful, or that I was going to regret that when I was older. And sure, I can see how that may have been a good idea, judging from the scars and aches and pains that I have. But, I wouldn’t change a single thing. I cannot imagine a life where I was more careful. I cannot fathom a younger me slowing down or playing it safe. It’s who I am at my core, and I wouldn’t change that for a million dollars because I know I have been true to myself and lived my life exactly how I wanted to, even if it wasn’t always smart. Besides, if I didn’t do all those stupid things when I was young, then I wouldn’t have any funny stories to tell when I’m old. And there’s nothing I enjoy more than telling funny stories.
So yesterday, as I watched my crazy little daughter Gracee as she ran a hundred miles an hour around the backyard, as a responsible adult, I said, “You need to slow down!” And when she climbed on top of the patio furniture, I knew that there was about a ninety percent chance that she would fall off. So I said to her, “You better get down from there. You’re going to hurt yourself!” And she ignored me, just like I ignored my parents. Then I grinned and watched as she jumped around like the little monkey that she is, until the inevitable happened and she fell to the ground.
I limped my beaten up body over to her, dusted her off and gave her a kiss and said, “You’ve got to be careful. You’ll wish you’d listened to me someday.” Because apparently, that’s what you’re supposed to say when you get old. But something tells me, she’s probably not going to listen. Just a hunch.
Stoney Stamper
is the author of the popular parenting blog, The Daddy Diaries. He and his wife April have three daughters: Abby, Emma and Gracee. Originally from northeast Oklahoma, the Stampers now live in Tyler, Texas. For your daily dose of The Daddy Diaries, visit Stoney on Facebook or on his website, thedaddydiaries.net.
