Jayson Slaymaker describes severe back pain, delayed treatment, a hospital visit, and the daily realities of inadequate prison medical care.

I’ve known for years that prison medical care in TDC is crap. Probably most of us have. But it wasn’t until I was swallowed up by the big fish that I realized just how crappy prison medical care is. I mean, we all know about the sick calls (requests to see medical) that are lost or go unanswered, being given Maalox for the flu, being called a liar or accused of faking an illness by some upjumped nurse, or being marked down as a “verbal refusal” because the cop who was to escort us didn’t feel like walking all the way down the hall. I’m talking about a medical department that’s hardly qualified to treat the dead, much less the living.

On a Sunday in May, I hurt my lower back. Well, I hurt it every few years. I had a motorcycle wreck years ago, and it’s never been the same since. It doesn’t take anything strenuous to throw it out of whack, either. I can be doing something as simple as tying my shoe, picking up something off the floor, or playing with my dick, and there goes the ballgame. Cancelled on account of rain. Usually, I just limp around for a few weeks, take a lot of ibuprofen, rail at the fates, and life is fair again.

That’s what I thought was going on this time. But on Monday, just after lunch, I sat down and couldn’t get back up. I could feel my legs, but I couldn’t move them. (If you want to know how fucking scary that is, ask anyone who’s paralyzed what their first thoughts were.) They had to carry me to the infirmary on a backboard, where they gave me a cortisone shot and let me rest for about an hour. I was able to walk back to the house under my own volition, and everything seemed to be fine. A little stiff is all.

But it began hurting again—in earnest—on Tuesday, enough that I asked to be taken to the medical department. The cop on the wing said he needed to call the captain. In the meantime, my legs started doing their thing again. Well, I didn’t see another cop or staff member for approximately five hours.

I called my lady friend (who I’ll call “C”) and asked her to call the unit and relate what was going on with me. She was routed to a sergeant before they finally just hung up on her. That happened several times. Needless to say, I didn’t get to the infirmary that night or the next day. Meanwhile, my back kept getting worse. It would seize up (think of a charlie horse) whenever I moved. My legs couldn’t withstand any pressure on them, so I couldn’t get off the bed. I was literally pissing in water bottles.

I was finally taken to the infirmary—via backboard—on Wednesday night, where after about an hour, EMS was called. I was taken by ambulance to the Coryell County Health Center (CCHC), where I spent the rest of the night in the emergency room, hopped to the gills on morphine. (It’s easy to see how guys go to the hospital for gunshot wounds and come out heroin addicts. Man! That shit is good!)

TDC doesn’t send people to free-world hospitals except for serious, serious injuries. I mean, guys get stabbed in the chest and beat in the head with fan motors down here, and don’t get sent to a free-world hospital. These trips are reserved for nuclear war, the apocalypse, and accidents involving farm equipment.

By implication, even TDC recognized my back injury as something more serious than what prison medical care is able to handle. The good doctors and nurses at CCHC diagnosed me with some damned thing called lumbosacral radiculopathy. (The doc was kinda creepy, but the nurses were great. I won’t even fault them for not wearing their white uniforms.)

Hell, I thought it was just some shit they made up for the occasion. (Sounds ridiculothopous, doesn’t it?) But apparently it’s a real thing. In layman’s terms, I basically have two pinched nerves at the base of my spine. (I know. Why not just say that?)

Lumbar is the group of nerves from your lower back to around the middle of your ass. Sacral is the group of nerves from the mid-ass region to, say, mid-thigh.

In effect, these two nerve groupings affect not only your lower back, but waist, hips, tailbone, ass cheeks, thighs (I get leg cramps all the way down to my goddamned ankles), and all surrounding counties. It makes you feel like you need to take a shit, even if you just took one. For guys, it makes you feel as if you just took one in the balls. (For chicks, I don’t know. Maybe it vibrates or something.) It can affect the flow of your pissing.

It hurts to cough. It hurts to hiccup. It hurts to sneeze. It hurts to laugh. It hurts to talk too loud. It even fucking hurts to hurt. In short, your body becomes the goddamned funhouse, where no humiliation is too great.

TDC hasn’t done shit to help me. I realize that this stuff hurts, and I’m just going to have to fade the pain for a while. But what I haven’t said yet—and what TDC could do to alleviate some of the difficulties—are some of the practical things affected by this injury.

For example, because I’m unable to move very well, I’m unable to clean up as I normally would. Just shaving, brushing my teeth, and putting on deodorant has become a real obstacle course that’s worthy of any Marine boot camp.

I don’t dare try to negotiate the shower. If I fall in there, I won’t be able to get back up. I’ll be forced to just lay there in the cum, boogers, hair, and other flotsam of the other men who’ve used it before me until someone comes along to help me back up.

And because I am so limited in my ability to move, I can’t sweep or wash my house in any effective way. I can’t do my laundry, and therefore I’m forced to wear dirty clothes. I’m unable to pack or unpack my personal property. To attempt any of these things is to pay a high price at the cost of my back.

So I live out of bags, not knowing what these cops have packed up or lost after my last move, unbathed with stanky breath in a dirty house. These things could all be easily enough alleviated should TDC care to stir itself. In fact, the difficulties I’ve listed here are those that should have been addressed at the outset of this ordeal.

As this is considered a long-term injury (approximately six to nine months), the feasible thing to have done would have been to transfer me to a medical facility that’s better equipped to handle these types of injuries.

I’ve written the medical department at this unit, requesting I be taken to medical showers when available and issued body wipes when not. I’ve requested that I be issued a foam mattress (called a geo mattress) that would be better for my back, as opposed to the lumpy, lopsided, misshapen, worn-out piece of shit I have now. In fact, I’m sure this mattress does more harm than good.

I’ve requested that the medical department issue me lidocaine, capsaicin patches, or cream for pain. I haven’t seen a doctor or other medical person since June. Otherwise, all TDC has seen fit to do is issue a walker, move my housing to the first floor, and give me some ibuprofen.

It’ll probably be good though, eh?