Back out of action

I should never have complained the other day about my backache. That was just a normal, common or garden backache, which was sore but didn't stop me from doing anything. On a scale of 1 to 10, it probably fluctuated between a 3 and a 5, but it was constant and the fear was always there that it would get worse and leave me incapacitated again.

The osteopath was treating it, and by yesterday it had improved to the degree where I actually went back to the gym and did some gentle exercise.

This morning, DH was in the shower and as I lay there in bed, half awake, I yawned and stretched - and felt something pop. Immediately, my back was flooded with pain. For a few moments, I was unable to move, but then I managed to turn onto my side and was relieved to find that it wasn't so painful in that position. I decided not to go to the stretching class I'd planned to attend at the gym this morning - a class attended mainly by older people, at which they do the stretches that the osteopath recommended to me to strengthen my back - and went back to sleep for an hour.

When I woke up, I got out of bed and found that my left leg wouldn't hold my weight. This has happened to me before, so the fear that I have now is first that I know how much pain I'm going to be in over the next few days and how difficult it's going to be to recover, and second, that it wasn't a one-off last year and I may be facing episodes like this regularly for the rest of my life.

I eventually managed to struggle to the bathroom, where I looked at the insurmountable height of the bath and decided I would have to live without having a shower today.

Since then, I've been hobbling around the house, knowing that if I sit still for too long, my back will seize up and be even more uncomfortable when I have to move again. Plus sitting still for more than five minutes causes the pain to radiate round to the front and start shooting down the front of my thighs. Since I got out of bed a couple of hours ago, the pain has been a constant 10 or 11, with occasional moments of relief where it goes down to 8 or 9. Painkillers don't touch it, and the ice pack didn't do a lot either.

I'm now waiting for a call back from the osteopath to see if she can fit me in before my next scheduled appointment next week. She worked miracles last time, so I'm hoping to get to see her before the weekend - though at the moment I'm even dreading the thought of hobbling out to my car and driving up there to see her.

In the meantime, I'm sorry if I don't comment on your blogs - it's taken me over half an hour to write this, and I've changed seats four times in the process and got up a few other times to walk around a bit. I just can't sit still long enough to read and leave comments today.

If blogging is light in the next few days (or possibly totally full of self-pitying rants about how much pain I'm in), you'll know why - hopefully normal service will be resumed soon.