Nana's back has always been a problem for her. She had a hard physical life for many years. Her weak back could be from carrying heavy wet clothes, run through an ancient wringer washer, up rickety cellar steps to hang on the clothesline outside. Even after she moved up to an automatic washer, a dryer was a luxury she never got to experience until decades later.
It could also be from carrying water. The Bower place, a falling down rambling farmhouse, never had running water. When we moved to the Staggert place in 1957, the whole family was excited to have hot and cold water at the kitchen sink. The joy was short-lived. Soon after we moved in, our spring - the only source of water - went dry and Nana had to haul water in tall dented metal milk cans from a mountain spring miles away. Soon after the spring was freely flowing, the kitchen drain clogged and we had to haul water outside to dump it. More back work for Nana.
Nana's back took the biggest hit from working over twenty years in a textile factory. The current term for the factory where she worked would be "sweatshop." She used a machine called a ball spinning machine to spin wispy multi-colored thread onto small wooden balls. A hand crank was the only source of power and Nana had to produce grosses of these shimmering balls. Nana saved some of the balls she made and I have a few of them on display in my office to remind me to stop whining whenever I think I'm having a hard day.
In 2010, Nana had three back surgeries called kyphoplasty. A cement-like material is surgically inserted between compressed vertebrae to stop the pain of the fracture. In Nana's case, these compressed fractures come from osteoporosis. Nana always says the doctor has to call for a cement truck delivery before surgery.
When she was experiencing severe back pain a few weeks ago, the doctor thought we were going to be doing surgery #4. Unfortunately, after two MRI's, the results indicated that nothing can surgically be done to relieve her pain.
In addition to the osteoporosis, Nana has a condition called scoliosis or curvature of the spine. This complicates her back pain, not to mention her walking and now even her digestion as the condition gets steadily worse. Nana has accepted this condition. She's even re-named it. She calls it "squirrelly-osis." Thank goodness for Nana's sense of humor and her determination to live her life the way she wants in spite of all her back problems.
