SteveStreeting.com

Dammit.

I had (perhaps foolishly) begun to think that I’d put most of my back problems behind me now - it has after all been over a year since I had any significant pain from it; just a few aches / cricks / stiffness occasionally but nothing major. However, while taking a shower Sunday morning I reached down and ‘whallop’ - something popped out (or in my case, rotated since my recurring problem is a twisted rather than slipped disc). I’m guessing that anyone who has had a back injury probably knows what it feels like - a splitsecond before the pain hits there’s a weird ‘weakness’ feeling in the affected area, like when you bend a paperclip too many times and it suddenly ‘gives’. You know in that splitsecond that it’s going to hurt like hell, so you have that tiny bit of time to prepare for it, which I normally fill by preparing my very best expletives.

So, that was Sunday down the crapper - simply straightening up / moving was a chore. I know from experience though that you have to keep moving - even though it’s wonderful when you finally find a sitting position that relieves the pain enough to be considered ‘comfortable’, staying there for a long time is a bad idea because everything just seizes up. So I forced myself to regularly get up and move around, stretching as much as I could manage (cue more swearing). It seemed to work, by the late evening I could actually get my back muscles to relax enough that I could stand completely straight for once. Hurrah.

I’m feeling pretty beaten up this morning but it’s an improvement over 24 hours ago - at least I’m no longer recreating the music video for ‘Walk Like an Octogenarian’. I guess I’ll have to spend most of today getting up and down to stretch again, not exactly condusive to productivity but necessary.