Self-Inflicted Whiplash in 7 Easy Steps!

Step 1. Quit high school volleyball during sophomore year. Do not touch or look at a volleyball for at least a decade.

Step 2. Discuss with co-workers the possibility of joining a rec league team. This will be a piece of cake, of course, as you played in high school!

Step 3. Join your workplace’s volleyball league, jokingly name your team after the biggest bad-ass there ever was (Chuck Norris) and arrange for a “practice” session the week before the season begins.

Step 4. Arrive early for said practice and, instead of quietly observing the competition, decide to play along with another team until your teammates arrive.

Step 5. In a fit of athletic ambitiousness, do not consider the effects of physics or gravity and instead make a Herculean effort (as well as making an ass of yourself) to dive and save an errant pass from one of your teammates, landing on your shoulder and ear in 6 inches of play sand.

Step 6. Get up, make wry comment about resembling a beached whale and continue to play for another 2 hours, ignoring the dull ache that is building in your neck and shoulder.

Step 7. Make the 40 minute drive home, take some ibuprofen, go to bed, and wake up the next morning unable lift yourself out of bed because you feel like you’ve been in a 30 mph car wreck.

Voila! You have now incurred a lateral flexion-extension injury, better known as whiplash.

**** addendum - looks like this is actually a disc herniation as per the MRI I just had last night... no official report on this yet but the pics seem to speak for themselves!****