Dem Bones

An old song, written by James Weldon Johnson and his brother Rosamond and first recorded by them in 1928 leaps into my mind every time we have damp weather, or a storm with thunder and lightning, or maybe I just overwork my body.

Who ever thought a song about pain would make me laugh.

The song, Dem Bones, goes like this:

The foot bone connected to the leg bone,

The leg bone connected to the knee bone,

The knee bone connected to the thigh bone,

The thigh bone connected to the backbone,

The backbone connected to the neck bone,

The neck bone connected to the head bone.

Yep, how true it is and not just physically. If you have arthritis, you know what I’m taking about. As soon as you feel one pain, you’re completely conscious of the rest that begin as you’re making a beeline for the medicine cabinet to grab whatever pain reliever you can find.

For me, it’s good old Tylenol but it really doesn’t matter what kind you take as long as it helps ease the pain.

Funny thing about this song, though, is that while it mentions legs, spinal bones, and head, it completely forgets to mention toes, shoulders, elbows, wrists, and fingers.

Good thing the song was written in the late 1890s before the Johnson brothers were fully aware of the human skeleton. Can you imagine if they tried to fit the entire skeletal bone structure in this small song that was meant to entertain children? As it is, my body knows very well, the bones that weren’t mentioned and it reminds me on a daily basis.

Many years ago, I had a problem with a toe. The problem was removed but now I have the residual arthritic pain in the joint where my toe and foot meet. (They’ve got to stop meeting like this!)

The pain in the joint at the area I mentioned above was caused by the trauma from the surgery I also mentioned. Nothing I can do about that. Well, I can take an OTC pain reliever – which I do.

My spinal and cervical pain is due to stenosis. Tylenol will never ease these pains. For them, I receive injections every five months. For those not familiar with stenosis, it occurs when something happens to reduce the amount of open space within the spine.

Some but not all causes are injury, and herniated disks. Unfortunately for me, I experienced both in 1992 when I was in a car accident. Yet, it took another ten years for the symptoms of that injury to appear. That’s where the age factor kicked in.

Yes, age plays a significant role with any kind of joint pain.

I never thought that in my younger days, my physical habits would come back to haunt me when I got older. I’d jump rope with my friend until my feet were sore. We played stickball in the street, and I was determined to swing the bat harder to make the ball go further than any of the other girls. I was a typical tomboy determined to fit in with the guys and leave the girls behind with their little frilly dresses and dolls (Oh, how I hated dolls – that’s another story).

One girl boasted how fast she could run. Wow! Sharon said she raced and beat the boy down the street. Not to be outdone, I challenged her. Being driven, I ran my best and beat her by a mere two feet! My feet pounded the sidewalk, and my ankles and knees scream at me saying, “Thank you, jerk! Look at what you’ve done to yourself!” To me, at the tender age of twelve, I had one thought: I beat Sharon! At the time, that’s all that mattered.

Bodily abuse? Hey, I was a kid having fun! What did I know about damaging my joints or bulging a disk. Sure, I had twisted ankles and my share of bruises, black eyes, fat lips, but I lived for the moment never once thinking of my future old bones. Now here I am, in my seventies, trying to keep my OLD bones from keeping me sidelined.

While I can still laugh at that old song, another thing I realize is that should I be careless enough to twist my ankle again, the pain radiates up my leg.

Pain radiates when an area of your body is injured or diseased. The nerves around the affected area send signals to the brain saying, “Hey! I’m in pain. Help!” I can only assume that the brain thinking if it spreads the pain around, the initial area might feel a bit less painful. Kind of like if you put too much salt on your food. You use your knife or fork and push the salt around, spreading it out to eliminate the oversalted area.

Well, guess what, good old brain of mine! Your theory doesn’t work on pain. My nerves tell me, “Hey, you. You with the pain in your joint. I’m going to remind you of your old bones and make you ache all over!”

Just like with my stenosis. When I get the horrific pain in my back. It shoots down through the backs of my legs into the bends of my knees. (The good thing about the injections I get is that the nerve blocks also shoot down the nerves in my legs and helps eliminate a lot of the pain.)

Pain is not age particular. It doesn’t care if you’re young or old. When it wants to attack you, it will. It also won’t care what part of your body it decides to attack. It’ll never give you a warning. Before you know what’s happening, you’ll have a pain somewhere. Sharp or dull won’t make a difference. It’ll be there.

So next time you feel a pain in your ankle, or knee, or for that matter, your big toe, remember, it’s all connected, just like the Johnson brothers said:

The foot bone connected to the leg bone,

The leg bone connected to the knee bone,

The knee bone connected to the thigh bone,

The thigh bone connected to the backbone,

The backbone connected to the neck bone,

The neck bone connected to the head bone.