A twinge in my back, a shift in my life: How one small injury sparked huge clarity

It’s circuit training hour at the gym and I’m plunged into rounds of rapid-fire exercises. Lunges! Burpees! Deadlifts! The music is pumping and so is my unruly heart rate, now displayed in alarming crimson on a TV screen.

The coach dutifully checks in. “Are you okay?” he queries.

“I can talk and sing,” I reply, listening to my body. Since I can still vocalise, I reckon I won’t pass out. It’ll be fine to push on. Get into the zone – the pain, pleasure and paradox of “racing heart, steady mind”.

But the zone is a fragile place. After swinging a kettlebell, the certainty dissolves. When I drop for a plank at the last station, I stop mid-rep as my lower back rebels.

One indignity after another

Then the litany of indignities begins. But I try to adjust: self-medicate, keep working, wryly laugh at self. It’s a slow-motion journey that eventually prompts me to question: Why are Singaporeans conditioned to grin and bear it? Young or old, why is the first reflex to “tahan” or endure?

Training done that Saturday, I find myself choosing the handicapped bathroom. This time, it’s not because the cubicle is spacious. I’m depending on the chunky grab bars for leverage and stability.

The eight-minute drive home feels longer. I steer incredibly gently around corners to minimise the flare-up in my spine, which I later discover is the “anchor” for every movement made in the driver’s seat. Even a slight twist is like poking a bruise.

I sneeze, and brace myself for impact. Medical experts at the Cleveland Clinic and Harvard Health in the US depict a sneeze as a “full-body event”. Nearly every muscle from the neck to the pelvic floor contracts simultaneously in about 150 milliseconds.

Before sleeping, I scroll to tutor myself on how to roll out of bed the next morning.

Isn’t the micro-geography of pain fascinating? Even an ache in a tiny toe or tooth diminishes body and spirit, pulling our horizons inward.

Even so, true to the “tahan” spirit, I self-manage for now.

In my case, I wait a couple of days to see the doctor because I have a stash of potent painkillers. Once prescribed for a fractured left wrist, my Arcoxia tablets were never required until now.

Besides, I’m on weekend editing duty and will work from home that Sunday. No need to burden my team with a last-minute swop, since the pain is under the lid.

Monday rolls around and the doctor issues an MC. The intensity of pain grows around the third or fourth day, he says. He’s spot on.

That week, when colleagues ask about my two-day absence and there is little opportunity to dive into the kettlebell consequences, I settle on a shorthand. “Sports injury,” I say quickly, while wondering if that’s an exaggeration.

Perhaps not. At least one editor is aghast that I had continued working, even if it was within the safe and cosy confines of home.

Should I have stopped working?

She’s philosophical. It’s not easy for Singaporeans to step out of the productive mode, she figures.

“We talk about the overconsumption of healthcare,” she continues. “But is the opposite true?”

For sure, we don’t want to be alarmists or hypochondriacs. Yet, speedy professional help for medical risks is more critical than we imagine.

What comes to mind are the mini-strokes with major consequences, which I read about recently in The New York Times.

Acting fast is pivotal, but people experiencing mini-strokes or transient ischemic attacks (TIA) often blow them off, as the symptoms disappear quickly. The arm weakness, the inability to recall words, the light-headedness may be over in minutes. So, soldier on. “Tahan”. It’ll be over soon.

That’s inviting disaster. “After a TIA, neurologists put the risk of a subsequent stroke within 90 days at 5 per cent to 20 per cent, with half that risk occurring in the first 48 hours,” according to The New York Times report.

That’s a terrifying window of vulnerability.

While my sole vulnerability is a twinge in the back, others suffer organ failure from being too stoic.

In the high-octane world of spin cycling, there’s a documented dark side of the “tahan” culture – where the “go-go-go” mindset overrides the body’s inner alarms.

Rhabdomyolysis (rhabdo in fitness circles) can happen when muscles are pushed far beyond their limit. It’s not unusual in high-intensity, repetitive, rapid-fire exercises, when muscle fibres break down and die.

As these fibres dissolve, they leak a protein called myoglobin into the bloodstream. The kidneys are tasked with filtering this “debris”. However, myoglobin is toxic to the kidneys and can clog their delicate filtration system, turning a morning workout into acute kidney injury or even total kidney failure.

Mum’s micro-geography of pain

If endurance is the superpower of sports lovers, my mum is the living counterexample of “tahan”. In the grip of dementia, she has lost the filters to suffer in silence. She vents; she whimpers.

While I have looked askance at her outbursts – “why can’t she ‘tahan’ a little?” – I realise my temporary pain is a permanent reality for my mother, who uses a wheelchair and goes for weekly physiotherapy.

I have watched her navigate the world with her walking frame, while both of us also negotiate our complicated relationship – one often shaped by the friction of our differences and the weight of her needs.

Now, suddenly, her geography is mine. It’s a forced mirror into her life of measured movements.

Mum, like some of Singapore’s super-agers, contends with the core activities of daily living, those invisible pillars of independence like bathing, dressing and being able to get out of bed.

Her complaints show me that we really don’t need to be heroes. Her plight is a physical reminder that every person has a breaking point. Once that point is reached, the focus may pivot from silent endurance to sanctioned indulgence.

Princesses of pain

That was exactly what happened with a lunch companion. She recalls that at age 16, she had swelling in her mouth for months after extracting a single wisdom tooth. She sipped porridge through a straw, and her anxious family ran around to do her bidding.

At the same table, a young professional recalls that her sister was also treated like a princess after an extraction.

No long-suffering fortitude for them. The “tahan” spirit can go out the window.

This is the trade-off of the unwell. We exchange our discomfort, and sometimes trauma, for the right to be fussed over by loving, soft-hearted family and friends.

And so, sports and life both reveal infinite loops of trade-offs.

I have noticed that as my quads gain muscle power, I sacrifice some suppleness. My sporty brother-in-law poses this savvy question: “Between slightly less flexibility and greater strength, what do you want?”

I know the answer. For me, that means getting strong while also accepting the cultural reflex to “tahan”. This does not mean ignoring the body’s limits, but I can choose to endure the friction of a life fully lived.

I want to be very strong. Because that’s my North Star, I can live with chunky legs, tactical sneezes and occasional, humbling twinges of a body in motion.