Rare Bird Photos, Spinal Pain Management & Intervention

• June
• 29

12:11 pm Uncategorized

My medical concerns evaporated  as I curled up to drift and dream through another Patagonia night, pain free. A magnificent population of birdlife roosted in this park tonight:  flamingoes, parrots, Andean Condors.   I would seek them tomorrow.

The following account focuses on the potential agony and ecstacy of wildlife photography, in particular one day in the Southern Hemisphere during an expedition, a rare find, a gnarly accident, a remedy and the concerns about emergency impacts in remote areas. A herniated disc would have shipped me out, set me back and propped me on pillows awhile. My problem proved a sprain.

I had prayed for the photos that I wanted: moments with the rare and exquisite Torrent Duck, which inhabits Rio Viedma. She showed up in form, bibbling and bobbling with her 3 babies.  Gleeful,  I had been savoring one of the few windfree days in this reach of Argentina, which typically gusts 60 mph.  The female’s mix of grey, rust andsnow-colored  feathers mask her foraging subsistence: the pixelated granite shadows and the water’s depth the only cover. This species is only found, if you are lucky, in rapid glacial runoff of Patagonia.

An intense pain took hold of me because my back got torqued while fording a relatively transparent but deceptively fast section of the river in my pursuit of the duck family. However,  I expected to be knocking outany pain within about an hour and a half.  Our mountain Doc brings online Tramadol in the medicine kit for expedition members to handle certain moderate to severe pain issues. This is just a minor tumble , I told myself, yet I felt way too chilly in my now-soaked duds. The horizontal blown pines above me had traded their emerald hues for pitch-dark wizardy-looking silhouettes.  I  felt a wave of spookiness, having allowed a state of   exhaustion to develop. It’s probably because I had set the alarm at 4:00 am  to take advantage of December’s dawn light show.  Losing my balance, I actually stumbled ,and the misstep left me feeling dizzy. 

I ascended the trail, back to camp, my innards now screaming for dinner: griddle pancakes with lots of butter and jam… hot chocolate and gobfuls of cashew nuts. Upon arrival at camp, I felt intuitively that a muscle spasm would prove the worst case scenario.  The doc examined me. He said when you suffer a sprain, the affected muscles may wince and have less flow of blood.  Pain then occurs. Injured muscles may also knot up or twinge.  He added that the body may actually be making a maneuver to keep me from employing that part of my body until it recuperates.

 Can you imagine, the sleepless  night in a mummy bag on a foam pad I would have differently suffered without online tramadol?   I wondered how my back would feel in the sunup. Earlier in the season, one of my buddies had a slightly invasive disc procedure done to remedy a moderate-sized herniation of one of her spinal discs. It was performed by a pain medicine doc using laser tools to repair it. Approaches have advanced for these types of pain interventions and include coblation tools (a type of radiofrequency vibeenergetic) and high pressure water projectiles. There is now this amazing invention called Intradiscal Electrothermal Therapy (IDET).  A specialized endoscope allows tools to be inserted into the discs for pain relieving repairs.

Wildlife photography in the back country not only energizes me, it provides the adventure and precision in craft that I crave. My father always said it is better to do what you love and take calculated risks to fullfil it than to look back on your life with regrets that you didn’t seize an opportunity. Back health is a critical concern for all ages. A good pain management program is worth its weight in rare photos.