A Walk in the Park

On September 15, 2021, in the middle of my work-at-home shift as a newspaper designer, I called my mom, trying to hold back tears, as the pain in my back had gotten so severe that I needed her to drive me to the urgent care. I had experienced an increasing number of 'oh no, my back is out' moments over the previous few years, mostly when moving between apartments and hauling boxes because despite my absolute loathing for moving, circumstances kept me changing living spaces almost every year. Usually with a week or so of lower activity and care about bending and lifting, the pain would fade and I would return to life of occasional aching.

This particular occasion was more frightening to me. I hadn't done anything major the day before or that morning, and the pain had come on so suddenly and intensely that I was worried about something more serious than just straining a muscle.

I am a very prideful person and was insisting I could walk up into the urgent care and to the desk, but seeing just the handful of steps up to the doors, I deflated, and allowed my mom to push me in and through the lobby in a wheelchair. Slumped over in the chair my pain was somewhere in the three or four range, but straightened up or on my feet, it was coming in at a blazing ten.

After a visit with a PA, and a very painful series of x-rays where I had to stand as straight as I possibly could with my legs trembling against the pain radiating out from the small of my back and my muscles feeling like they might simply give out, I was diagnosed with degenerative disc disease, something my mom has, and has a high genetic component. Essentially, DDD is a form of arthritis on the spine, a wear and tear that can cause pain as discs bulge or herniate and irritate the nerves there. This is a rather common disease, especially for older patients, and even relatively common for someone in their mid-30s.

Doing research into the condition, there was one rather specific kind of phrase that kept coming up. Constant pain. Consistent pain. Nagging pain. Pain lasting weeks or months.

There was also the rather sobering fact that while DDD can be treated in various ways, there is no cure.

I spent several of my following days using muscle relaxers to help calm down the pain in my back, dozing because of the meds, and reading about DDD. Almost all of the research said the same thing: treat with anti-inflammatories, stay active, and do physical therapy. If the condition grows severe, steroid injections or even surgery might be required.

I had been a walker even before that urgent care visit, jaunting around a mile or two before or after work listening to podcasts, counting the bunnies in our neighborhood, checking out to the local parks. It took me a while after my urgent care visit to build back up to that kind of activity. I wanted to be careful to not reinjure myself, to take it easy.

But as I stretched my miles further and further, I found that my back wasn't getting sore and achy, on the contrary, the pain was so much better on days when I was able to get in a good, long walk. I worked my way up to two and a half miles, then three, then three and a half. I worked on eating an anti-inflammatory diet and staying hydrated, and not over-straining my back.

Soon enough, the neighborhood wasn't big enough for my walks. I started exploring further outwards. I made a map of local parks, and started visiting a new one every day.

And that is how I found Bluff Lake Nature Center in February of 2022. A large lake with an approximately one and a quarter path around it, if you do a single loop. I started walking there when I could, finding that I was taking longer and longer there as I spotted dozens of glossy black birds with bright red and orange patches, long, white lanky birds with sharp orange beaks, or what would became one of my favorites -- hulking but shy black and white forms with bright blood red eyes. Lingering to watch them and their behavior, and then hurrying home to Google what I had seen.

Since high school I have had an on-and-off love affair with photography, often holding onto a DSLR until I felt like I wasn't using enough and selling it, getting a wild hair a few years later and getting whatever the newest mid-level was. Rinse, repeat. I was in a non-camera era when I started spotting all these wonderful winged creatures, and so I looked into what seemed like a decent amateur mirrorless camera with a decent zoom lens, as I wasn't the best about staying quiet, and often startled the birds away from me.

And then I started taking pictures every time I took a walk. I was doing around four miles at least a few times a week. Every day if I could manage, though weather and work often interrupted my plans. I would walk to Bluff Lake, or after exploring my map a little, west of the lake to Westerly Creek Park, or east to Sand Creek Park. I started to be able to differentiate Western kingbirds from Say's phoebes. It took a while. I learned about egrets and herons, and what birds counted as raptors. What birds might be incredibly common for months while they migrated, and why I could never get a good picture of a Northern flicker until autumn, when they start scavenging from the ground. I learned that that super weird and awesome black and white bird I often saw hiding in the branches near the lake had an equally weird and awesome name -- black-crowned night heron.

As of the end of 2022, I had logged over 100 observations of 70 different species of birds, along with several dragonflies, butterflies, deer, rodents, bees and a cicada killer wasp, and I have only had one experience where my back pain got as bad as it had been during that initial urgent care visit.

My experience with DDD and my newfound passion for bird watching have been a journey of discovery and healing. Through careful management of my activity, an anti-inflammatory diet and physical therapy, I have been able to live a more active and fulfilling life with the huge, unexpected benefit of discovering the beauty of nature and the wildlife around me.