Over the last eight years, Brad and I have taken on dozens of home-improvement projects. We started out by re-plumbing our entire home, and replacing all the old wiring with new.

We've taken out old walls and put up new. We turned our basement -- which was once a mechanic's garage -- into a finished floor with an office, family room and laundry room.

We've removed trees and dead branches from the yard and hauled off thousands of pounds of concrete. We've replaced windows and doors and painted the entire house and all of this without any kind of serious injury.

Sure I nearly took off my right thumb with the gas-powered hedge clippers and broke my little pinky when it got in the way of a piece of concrete and the edge of skid steer, but nothing major.

More recently, we tore up the carpet in our living room and used a floor sander to remove the glue and left over linoleum backing from our wood flooring.

Through it all, at the end of the day, I would come into the house knowing I had put in a full day's work.

My back would ache, my knees would hurt, and the muscles in my arms would put on a fiery protest. But with the help of a heating pad and a little ibuprophen, I had no problems getting up and going at it the next day.

No problems, that is, until last Thursday. The only difference was, I wasn't hauling wood from the back yard. I hadn't touched a bag of cement in two months, the drywall has been hung for years and the windows and doors are all fully installed.

Last Thursday, I was watching CNN, considering a nap before work, and waiting for Jeremy to get home from school.

I had decided to forego the nap and have a soda instead. I walked into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, bent down and as I picked up the 24 oz. soda, felt a knife being thrust into my lower back. The doctor said it was either a sciatic nerve or a herniated disc.

Until we know for sure, it looks like physical therapy has been added to my daily agenda.

I've hauled 60-pound bags of cement with little or no difficulty. I've carried 12-foot 2x4s, two at a time from our back yard, up the hill and into the house. I've hung sheets of 8x4 foot - ½ inch thick sheet rock without only minor discomfort.

I am completely dumbfounded that it was a 24 oz. bottle of soda that finally shut me down and left me feeling as helpless as a kitten.

Thankfully, Brad arrived back home Friday. He and Jeremy have basically been waiting on me, hand and foot -- when I'm not knocked out from the muscle relaxants and pain killers the doctor prescribed for me.

My boss passed a message along to me through my son, telling me it's just old age.

"Get off your (behind) and get back to work," according to Jer. At the time he reportedly said it with a smile on his face. I'm not so sure he's smiling anymore.

We do have a new rule in the house. From this point on, the largest soda allowed in the house will be a 16-ounce bottle. Anything larger than that will have to be delivered to me partially poured over a glass of ice.