Cook: It's tough getting old: jelly doughnuts and herniated discs
Photo by Ashlee Culverhouse /Times Free Press. Looking back, I should have seen it coming. But I can't look back right now. I can barely even turn around. It started this spring. We moved houses, and I carried and stacked boxes like Tetris. The new house had water issues, so I was crawling around like a coal miner, digging French drains that seemed more like moats. All the while, my lower back began to nag, these little sighs of pain. Hush, I whispered. Have some more Advil. On the ledger balance of lumbar health, I was overdrawn. Soon, I'd pay up. "The bill always came," wrote Hemingway. It happened two weeks ago. We'd gone camping, and I arrived at the campground vertical, standing on my own two feet. I stoked the fire. Uncorked the wine. Inflated the air mattress. ("You camp lazy," my daughter said.) The next day, I was horizontal. It was excruciating, this fire-rope of back-an...
