So here's the deal.

From Saturday evening takeout.

Let me state up front, since no one seemed to understand at the hospital, that I was not hurt because I fell on the floor. I fell on the floor because I was hurt.

I tried to explain the story at least eight times.

If you've hung around this joint at all, you may know that I've been diagnosed with sciatica and have been battling it through physical therapy since January. It was taking a turn for the worse last week; Friday was bad; Saturday was awful.

Then, Sunday, at 4:30 in the morning, it was unbelievable.

I can hardly describe the pain, but to say that everything I'd felt up to that point was virtually nothing by comparison -- and it had not been nothing. Blinding, burning, crushing pain. Somehow I got to the toilet, wolfed down Advil and Tylenol while using it, but then had one thought -- get to my chair.

Every guy has his chair, and mine was a lifesaver on Saturday. It was the only place I found any relief from the pain, pain that made my wife cancel our dinner plans (a friend's birthday gathering). If it had been a little worse, I would have gone to the urgicare. But, since it wasn't, and since on Friday I had made an appointment to see a pain specialist on Tuesday (earliest available), I didn't. I figured I could stick it out until Tuesday.

And then it was Sunday, and sitting in my chair was burning agony. So, I fell forward onto the floor.

This put my head by Tralfaz's dog bed. Fazzy got up and made for the hall, which I appreciated; I was able to tug his bed over and rest my head on it. And that was about the limit of my ability to move. I was on my side, knees pulled up, not quite a fetal position because that would have hurt more. Really, even though I was the beach for waves of pain to wash over, every move beyond my right arm was horrendous. You've heard the expression "writhing in agony" -- now I know that it is quite a literal description.

Fortunately, I had my phone. Unfortunately, no one was up.

I could have called 911. That would have meant them breaking down the door, setting off the electronic as well as the canine alarms, and scaring the ever-lovin' snot out of my wife. Or I could do what I did, when I finally conceded that it wasn't getting any better on its own, and started calling and texting my wife.

It took until about 5:20. Then she got right to it. Although she was freaking out a little, she kept a cool head and took care of business. She corralled the dogs, called 911, and checked if she could do anything else for me. But nothing could be done for me. All I could do was be a lump of agony on the floor, praying that when the ambulance arrived that for mercy's sake they'd bring with them an enormous cartoon-size hypo marked PAINKILLER and jam it right into me. Because I was thinking, there are two kinds of people in war movies who get grave injuries and don't die -- the kind that somehow summon the guts to get up and move, and the kind that ask a buddy for a bullet in the head, and I was so far into #2 camp that I couldn't believe #1 really existed. Not if he felt like this.

The gentlemen who arrived more than half an hour after the call (I grumbled to my wife that she should have lied and said there was blood everywhere) were friendly, professional, and completely powerless to give me anything to stop the torment. In fact, when I told them I could not roll over -- because sometimes you really can't force your muscles to do things -- and that to be rolled over would make the pain even worse (Spinal Tap style, the 10 on the pain chart would go to 11), I was regretfully informed that it would be necessary in order to get me into the chair lift to get down the stairs and onto the stretcher and into the meat wagon. This turned out to be the case, and as the men heroically moved my bulk hither and yon, I screamed like I was giving birth.

I often exaggerate for comic effect, but all of this is just as I'm telling you.

Once strapped in we waited on my driveway an abysmally long time while the driver got the okay to proceed to the hospital, 17 miles away. The pain was indeed worse on my back, which is why I had been on my side, and I was trying to hold my left side up as much as I could with the force of arms, because my left side was the very worst spot. Finally we were given clearance for liftoff.

"I'm sorry," said my medic in the back. "This isn't a Cadillac, it's a truck, so it's gonna be a little bumpy."

"Yeah, I figured," I said, while he took my blood pressure, which was so high I thought the cuff would burst like a balloon.

To be continued....