Spare Parts

I was sitting in yet another chiropractor’s office this afternoon. Clipped to the light box on the wall were x-rays of my lower spine, taken earlier this fall to see if I’d fractured or otherwise injured anything when I took that short attempt at flight at the acupuncturist’s.

At the time they came back negative.

But now, someone who knows spines pointed out a little bit of bone just above my sacrum. And I’m wondering how I could have gotten to a certain age, with all the doctors of every stripe who have looked at me inside and out, without somebody telling me that I have six lumbar vertebrae instead of the usual five.

Yes, it’s true. I have extra parts. Excess baggage, a spare for when I have a blowout and need a replacement. Does AAA cover that, I wonder? (The answer is yes, but you don’t want to know where they keep the jack.)

Many moons ago, when I first sprained my back, the x-ray came back with this on the report: “transverse vertebrae within the range of normal.”

Apparently, this little bonus was what that line partially referred to, but as it was being reviewed by an HMO, then ignored when the MRI came around, showing what it showed, nobody thought anything of a useless little x-ray.

Now this guy is telling me that it isn’t exactly normal. And could be the source of a great deal of the physical misery that’s been plaguing me since the summer. The transverse flange on one side of the vertebrae is larger than the other. The larger side is too tight against the sacrum, and the smaller side is stretched too much and has become too loose.

Apparently this spare part needs some mechanical attention.

The first step of which is why I’m wearing this gunslinger-like apparatus around my hips. It’s called a sacroiliac belt. And it’s so freaking weird. For one, the idea of wearing something hospital-white strapped around that part of my anatomy with Velcro makes me feel like I’m ready for Geritol and something to make my dentures feel minty fresh. For two, it presses into my achy parts when I sit, and since I’m just wearing the chiro’s trial belt and he wants me to wear it outside my clothes, I have to take it off every time I have to attend to certain biological needs. Which is probably too much information but part of why this thing is so strange.

But it’s a good thing. Like I said before, it’s a trial. If I try it for a couple days, and it helps, then we’ve diagnosed that a possible source of the problem is the left transverse flange, and we can proceed from there (which means that I buy the thing, wear it inside my clothes, and wear it until the inflammation subsides and the muscles supporting the SI joint get stronger.

And if it doesn’t work, the right side of the flange might be the culprit, and we’ll proceed with a manual adjustment.

Either way, I’m trying to look at this positively.

Maybe we’re finally onto something.

Yeah. That’s it.

Meanwhile I hitch up my supportive device and smile. Maybe if I have to buy my own, I could decorate it. Dye it purple, sew in seed pearls and write dirty graffiti across the back.

Because I’m not ready for Geritol and dentures.

Not yet.