39 going on ninety

So this is what I get for getting enthusiastic about my gardening activities. As I said a couple of posts ago, I suffer with lower back pain every now and again. It started when I was a teenager, just before I left school, probably due to carrying an overloaded schoolbag on one shoulder.

Over the years it has come back to haunt me. I've seen all manner of doctor/quacks/ alternative medicine practitioners about it. GPs, an orthopedic consultant, a physiotherapist, some dodgy dude who called himself a "spinologist" (in my defence I was a crippled 19 year old at the time, and if Jack the Ripper had suggested chopping my head off at that point I'd probably have agreed to it if it took the pain away), a chiropractor who I think may have done me more harm than good, and told me that one of my legs was longer than the other; and several different osteopaths, one of whom told me that the one leg longer than the other theory was bullshit, and that my joints were out of alignment. One loud click later and hey presto, my legs were the same length again. I've also tried accupuncture for it, which seemed to give temporary relief.

Last year I had an MRI scan taken, and the results showed that I have wear and tear on one of my discs, on the lumbar sacchral joint. That means sweet FA to me, but all I know is that every now and then it flares up, and when it does I end up with excrutiating pain from my lower back down to my left foot. Anyway, a few week back, I went to lift a rather large planter pot in the garden, not realising that it was water logged. Straight away I could feel it. Ouch!!! It has got gradually worse over the weeks, to the point that operation Hump n' Hope was almost cancelled this month.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, last Monday morning, I woke up in agony. It was like all the muscles in my lower back had gone into spasm, and I could only walk, or should I say waddle, like a duck. I went into work for the morning, but left before lunchtime. I rang the osteopath and got a cancellation for 5pm that evening. I went to bed, fell asleep and woke up at 4.25pm. Yikes! Got up, dressed, made myself a sandwich since I had not eaten anything that day. Hobbled to the car, realised I was almost out of petrol. Went to the petrol station at the top of our road, petrol pumps out of order. Muttered expletives under my breadth whilst zooming out to the Limerick road, in as much as you can zoom in a 13 year old 1.1L Peugot 106 (our other car is a big shiney Audi, honest!). Then I met roadworks, complete with traffic lights which change every five minutes. The petrol light was flashing furiously at this stage. I prayed that I wouldn't run out of petrol in the middle of 60mph traffic on the N7. Made it to the petrol station (phew!), stuck €20 worth of fuel in the Puggernaut, and headed off in the direction of Killaloe.

About half a mile up the road after taking the turn off for Killaloe, I met a tractor. Lovely. Farmer Ryan dutifully pulled into his yard and got the fuck out of my way, leaving me stuck in the middle of about twenty cows blocking a seriously narrow road. At this stage my inner farmer's daughter came out. I blasted them out of it with the car horn, shouting "move you stupid fucking animals", whilst they happily grazed at the hedgerows and sprayed the bonnet of my car with cow shit. Oh the joys of rural living. No wonder I left city life behind me. I pushed my way through, to find a Killaloe Yummy Mummy the other side of the traffic sitting there gingerly in her 4x4, looking terrified to move. Obviously not the product of an agricultural upbringing like yours truly. For the love of God woman, you have bull bars, use the fucking things!

I made it to the osteopath 10 minutes late. It was a new osteopath, so he wasn't familiar with my history, and couldn't find any record of me on his database. So after I gave him the same run down as I gave the GPs, orthopedic consultant, spinologist, chiropractor, three previous osteopaths and my accupunturist, I realised that he was probably looking under the wrong name. I have an unusual surname beginning with a G, which sounds very like a far more common surname, which begins with a D. Sure enough he was looking under Jane D******* and not Jane G*******. Anyway, up on the examination bed/table I crawled and the torture began. Does this hurt? FUCK!!!!! (You can take that as a yes by the way). This went on for almost an hour, but by the end of it he had worked a good bit of the muscle spasm out. I was told to go home and put ice on it to bring down the inflamation. A packet of frozen peas would do the job nicely. So I parted with €65 and went on my merry way to my local purveyor of frozen legumes.

I spent most of the day in bed yesterday bored out of my head playing Sudoku on my DS Lite, trying to work myself up to the frozen pea treatment. So I'm back at my desk today, feeling a lot better and walking much more like a 39 year old than a ninety year old woman, or a duck. I'll just have to cancel that bungy jump I had planned for the weekend. Damn! Anyone for dominoes?