Something to Climb: A Review of Subway’s Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki Sandwich

Strolling to Subway has become my personal Everest, for the time being.

I’m now several weeks out from the time I rolled over in bed — making a subtle shift to try and quell my restlessness and get comfortable — and felt something go wrong in my body, triggering the the thought: “Oh shit. This is probably not going to be good.”

All I did was try to turn from a position on my back to one on my right side. There was a twinge in my neck and upper back and while I wasn’t suddenly met with blinding, searing pain, I immediately intuited with little doubt that this was what awaited me in the not-very-distant future.

It had happened before from what I can only assume was even less. The first time my back acted up in a really flagrant way I was (and am still) unable to pinpoint the moment when something went awry, can’t identify anything acute, which surprised and maybe even impressed my doctors given the severity of the situation — and it did fall somewhere on the spectrum of severe. I was unable to ambulate without an excruciating, burning pain in my lower back that radiated to my hip and down my right leg, rendering it all but useless. I remember feeling very scared when, after white-knuckling it through a dinner with friends during which I had to consciously keep myself from moaning in pain each of the many times I shifted in my seat in an attempt at finding some sort of relief (comfort was off the table by then), I got out of a Lyft only to have my right leg buckle completely, sending me crumpling to the ground. The driver graciously helped me up (five stars, for sure, on that one) and I insisted I was fine, then waited sitting on the steps that led to the entry of my apartment complex for a few moments, gathering myself as the car drove off. When I got up and tried to navigate the steps, my leg gave out again.

How could something so bad, intrusive and overtaking have happened without my being able to identify the catalyst? And why was it a seeming trend in my life? To that point, I’d broken the same small bone in the ball of my foot two times and cannot tell you when it actually broke on either occasion. I just got out of bed one morning, both times, and was like, “Well…