Usually, LeBron James is spending late October defying Father Time. Instead, he’s appearing in tasteless Hennessy ads and sitting stiff as a mannequin on the Lakers bench. The King is suffering from sciatica, a nerve condition that causes pain and numbness to run through your back and to your leg. Subtle, yet intermittently debilitating, it’s the type of injury anyone can get. Especially if you’re older.
It’s not as much about what you feel, as much as what you don’t. At least, at first. Those lumbar muscles that make you glad you don’t skip back day are suddenly muted, and getting out of bed begins to feel like trying to crawl out of quicksand. But you make it out. You figure you just slept awkwardly. Or maybe those deadlift sets from two days ago have taken their toll. You’re not 26 anymore. Shit, you’re not even 36. But it’s fine. The cold kitchen hardwood beneath your feet becomes its own kind of micro exhilaration. Compared to the lack of feeling in your back, this is 5-Hour Energy drink for your legs. The morning malaise begins to fade. Then, you take that step and feeling returns to your lower back. It’s not a good one.
Gradually, a lack of sensation becomes an ache crawling from your lumbar to one leg. You take a Tylenol PM and figure you can sleep it off. You begin what now feels like an arduous trudge upstairs to your bedroom. Whereas the hardwood had been therapeutic, it now feels like hot coals beneath your feet. The journey to your bed begins feeling like the most boring Fear Factor episode ever. You want to go faster, but that only intensifies the pain, so you’re stuck in a purgatorial sojourn to the top of your staircase. But you make it. Now, you let gravity do the work. Tylenol will kick in at any moment. Just fall to the bed. You do. But then — surprise — the ache is even worse. It will subside, but years of neglect lets you know it’s time to go to the doctor. You do. And you learn that it’s time to sit.
Just like LeBron.