At the advanced age of 18, I was discharged from the clinic and told never to darken their doors again. Actually, that's not true, they told me to come back if I had any problems (many moons later I was to discover that this offer was rubbish!)
Anyway, as I said before I had no major problems with my back and life was good. Over the next ten years, I went to college, met a great man, got married and got a job that I loved. Everything was going swimmingly and although I always thought there might be the possibility of problems as I got older, I started to think that this would be maybe when I retired.
One day at the age of 28 my back started to hurt when I was in work. It didn't improve - I woke up the next morning and it was still there - a real grinding ache low down in my back. As far as I knew I hadn't done anything odd and I expected it to get better. After a couple of weeks without change it was really getting to me to I went to the doctor for painkillers. They didn't work so he gave me stronger ones and referred me to a specialist. In fact, I paid to see him privately as I was in so much agony that I didn't want to wait the 12 months it would have taken to see someone on the NHS.
He was very blunt. He told me that I had arthritis of the spine caused by years of limping around and that it would only get worse from here. There would be no improvement in my pain and he expected me to be in a wheelchair by the time I was 40! I was devastated (well anyone would be) but was determined to get on with life. It was back to the doctors for some more, stronger painkillers and went back to work.
Incidentally, that pain has never gone away – and we are now 14 years later. Now, I wonder what I will do if it ever goes I am so used to it. It has been joined by many other aches and pains which I may touch on in time but it just grinds away like background noise. Strangely, I don’t find it anywhere near as awful as I did to start with.
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