![]() ![]() All these effects were dragging me down mentally, too. Sitting in my office desk chair became painful, and I was forced to build an elevated platform for my computer and keyboard so I could stand and work. I had to roll sideways off the bed onto my hands and knees, and then stand – first making sure no one was looking, of course. ![]() To get out of bed or off a couch, I couldn’t simply sit up and then stand. I’d stand every 15 minutes or so to take a break from the ache. Climbing into those ladder stands was difficult, and sitting in them was uncomfortable. Bending caused a bolt of pain to shoot down the nerve, so just getting dressed and tying my shoes – let alone pulling on hunting boots – was a struggle. To drive to my family’s hunting land, a four-hour trip, I would take an ibuprofen, run the seat heater on high, and then stop at least twice during the trip to walk and stretch. I wish I’d been more serious about protecting my spine when I was younger. I’ve learned my spine, like my hearing, is one of those things most of us abuse when we’re younger to our regret when we’re older. My symptoms matched “ sciatica,” and an MRI later confirmed the blown-out disc. I started to do a little research online, and sure enough lots of other people have experienced exactly what I was feeling, possibly including you. Pressing a gas pedal with my right foot was particularly uncomfortable, so driving became a problem. Eventually, the pain was like a cord extending from my lower back to my right ankle. It seemed worse when I was sitting.Ī little further each day, the pain crept down my right thigh to the back of my knee. Taking a couple days off had always fixed the usual mysterious aches of jogging, but this pain didn’t subside. A Deer Season Darkened by PainĪbout a week after that workday with the ladder stands, I noticed a dull pain in my right gluteus that seemed to me like a strained muscle, so I backed off running for a couple days. As the gel bulged out through the torn lining over coming days – known as a herniated disc – it began to press on my sciatic nerve. But sure enough, the strain had damaged the cartilage lining one of the gel-filled discs that cushions the vertebrae in the spine. I ended the day feeling great about how much I’d accomplished in preparation for deer season, and all by myself. If you start to lose control, and I did, you put serious pressure on your lumbar vertebrae – your lower back – as you strain to stay under the ladder. In that lifting process, you are putting major torque and strain on your spine. I’m giving you DIY instructions for something you should not DIY. Then, carefully lift the seat over your head and “walk it” hand-to-hand up the rungs of the ladder until it’s leaning against the tree. Just position the ladder face-down with legs toward the tree, and push the legs into the dirt or roots so they don’t slip. I’d done it before, and you probably have too. Setting up ladder stands is not that big a deal, I told myself, even with heavy-duty, two-man ladder stands. When no one else could join me for a deer-stand workday, I figured I could do it alone. I’d been jogging a little and doing some light weight training that summer. This was year two of the pandemic between the winter and fall 2021 surges of coronavirus, and my family had been eating out a lot less than normal. That summer, I was in middling physical shape for a 51-year-old. I want to help you avoid the same mistake. But, sure enough, I caused damage I am still regretting, and it had a major impact on my deer hunting and quality of life for a long time. I didn’t even know I injured myself that day. A ladder stand did not fall on me, nor did I fall out of one. If you’re here for a dramatic disaster story or a thrilling rescue, you’ll be disappointed. Two years later, I’m still not fully recovered from that ladder stand workout. The date is memorialized in an Instagram post: July 23, 2021, the day I relocated four, two-man ladder stands and put them up by myself, then bragged about how it was my cross-fit workout for the day.
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