My 10 month report

So, here I am again, writing about my back and my progress, which, I’m thinking is not really so different from last month. I think up ‘til last month I kept thinking I’m doing so much better than I was a month ago, a week ago or even a day ago but I think progress has ground to a halt. I don’t know if this means that I am now ‘better’ (from my surgery) or whether it has slowed down to a dull crawl because of the winter but for whatever reason , I am at the status quo. Of course, I would prefer to be at a Status Quo concert than merely maintaining it within my own house but its not every day Rick Parfitt drops round to tea^*1 and you can’t have everything !

I have finally realised that having back surgery is not a cure for back pain. I still get my days where I wake up very stiff (as opposed to most days where I wake up a bit stiff but get moving fairly easily) and I recently decided that even though I had been told the surgery was no cure, I still hoped and actually I was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t. It’s easy as well, in the early days of your recovery, to think that you are going to be pain free – this idea is mostly fuelled by large amounts of very strong painkillers (mmmm PCA) and the fact that you don’t actually do very much to stress your back in the early days. Once you start doing all life’s normal stuff and cut your painkillers down too, you find that actually you are not invincible after all!

I don’t help myself in that sometimes I really do overdo it – I go training for sport on top of all the housework and then get annoyed that my back hurts. One day I will learn – what I don’t know, but I’m sure I’ll learn something…..^*2

Anyway, on a practical note, my walking is pretty much the same – on a good day it's maybe a bit faster than it used to be, but I still resort to shuffling round like a little old lady on occasion. The nerve pain in my leg is same old, same old so I cannot cut the pills down from the level they are at. The good news is that they seem to have no side effects so I am pretty happy.

Beyond all that the only other thing to report on is the weather (see, British) and the effect it seems to have on me. Now it was always the case that I was a bit more achy in the cold and damp but now, I feel the cold quite badly in the centre of my back quite high up. It’s about where the rod is closest to the skin and it’s like an icicle inside me. Now anecdotal evidence is that your rods can get cold and I’m going with that because that’s what it feels like to me. It’s certainly pretty odd…

Regarding my scar, it’s healed really nicely and is fading well. It still gets sore and I can still do enough to make it swell up. My physio tells me it’s an indication that I am doing too much – surely not…..too much? Moi?

Re-reading all of this, makes me feel that I’m having a good old moan about things when really that’s not the case. The list of good things about getting my back done far outweighs the list of bad. Leaving everything aside about how an increase in curvature would have crushed my lungs and squished my insides generally, the upshot of it all is that even if I still have pain it doesn’t have the same kind of impact on my life. My painkillers work much better and my recovery is hugely improved from my pre-op days. That in itself would have made all worthwhile, but the effect that feeling better about your body, the option to buy any style of clothes you fancy also has an amazing psychological impact on you. If we’re going back to that age old question of would I have it done again? Well, I’d have it done again if the recovery was twice as long and much more painful. Now I say that, when I still have two 30ish angles and I know that there are people who still think that’s not great, but look back to where I came from…..amazing isn’t it?

^*1 Not, you understand, that he has ever, dropped round for tea….
^*2I feel a visit to answers.com coming on, I must be able to learn something there surely…..