A BAD DAY AT LEMON ROCK

"Well, you are all doing so much better!" Thus spake the physio during Back Class on Tuesday.  Now, I know they have to chivvy us along with words of encouragement, but as I look down at my feet which are slowly creeping out to about 10 cms each side, I also know, that they know there is no way that what I am doing is a "star jump. No way at all.  "Hey, let's have a smile!  Don't you feel the improvement?" they bounce Tiggerlike, full of enthusiasm towards me.  "No Lady,  I feel like Tigger's great-grandmother in a death suit", I think to myself - but I just wanly smile and shake my head.  My back feels like it's in a steel tube, I cannot bend or do the knee rolls; so I just lie there like a broken doll while all enthuse around me. Nothing responds the way it should; I cannot shift my balance from one foot to the other; ab crunches? don't make me laugh; step ups? Three or 4 at the most and the tears are welling and burning as I try to hold them in.  And you know what? I do hold them in, right until I get back to the car and then those floodgates just burst open...

The next day I am wrecked and wasted.  I have taken the painkillers, had the bath, put the heat pad on and still it's crap.  But the thing that really hits me hard is how I don't feel like this is me any more - it's as if I'm a different person to who I was before last May.  I don't interact with my family like I used to, oh sure I make all the right noises and go through all the right motions, but I still feel like I am watching from inside the wrong body; this one's faulty and I don't know where to take it back and get a refund.  There doesn't seem to be a way forward or out of this and I worry what effect it will all have on my husband and my children in the long run.  I want to enjoy being part of my 9 year old's day - but at the moment it's not happening.  I am pretending and acting so that she doesn't know or see the truth..... because I want to protect her.

This morning I hobbled into the bathroom (I refuse to crawl so I creep round the walls, holding on to various bits of furniture).  I reached up to the cabinet for my painkillers and...........and then.....and then I dropped them.........I couldn't believe it......I just dropped them right there onto the floor.  For a moment I simply stood (well, more stooping actually) and looked at them lying on the blue carpet, then I tried to kick them to the side so I could sit on the edge of the bath to pick them up.  But I couldn't pick them up - the pain wouldn't allow me.  It was a face off - with me staring at the box of pills on the floor and them just lying there, mocking me because there was no way could I get them.  My sobbing brought my husband who silently bent down, picked them up and gave them to me.  A simple movement, and one I would previously have never given a second thought to was now a big deal. Improvement?   Depends on your definitions I suppose.

LEMON RATING: A fat old 7.5 out of 10 (on account of post exercise and a dropped box of pills)

AND LET'S WORK THOSE LEMONS GIRL! READY?

Today was back exercise class.   The session involves a series of warm-ups, followed by 12 individual exercises (which last for about 1½ minutes each), cool downs, relaxation and group discussion. The participants  are at all varying degrees of disability/pain, so, you have me and a couple of other wrecks (who are at the bottom of the scale and can barely lift our legs, let alone get down onto the floor mat); and then you have the top echelon, those who can do aerobics and who just stop short of doing one-armed press-ups.  Now, it doesn’t take much to bruise my self-esteem, so to see someone who resembles a personal trainer, marching on the spot (and in perfect time to the music as well, would you mind) at the rate of knots when I am struggling on the half-jacks is enough to send me hobbling for the nearest exit and the safety of my couch.

Relaxation wasn’t much better.  We all had to lie on mats on the floor with 2 pillows and listen to a tape, whilst a therapist  took us through a fantasy world of peace and tranquillity, birdsong, wild flowers, blue skies and rippling streams.  Unfortunately, all I could think about was a) I am cold and uncomfortable; b) I got down here, but I’m not sure I’m going to get back up, and c) dear God, please don’t let that curry I had last night repeat itself, because the last thing I want to do in this world of peace and tranquillity, is let rip and break wind.  Of course, this does not lend itself to a relaxing session at all and I was very glad when we left the fantasy world and gently brought ourselves back into the room.  Thankfully, the curry behaved itself and I managed to get myself back upright in a dignified manner.

Group discussion came next.  The young man doing the talk was obviously very keen on this programme and did his best with a whiteboard and a marker pen that had seen better days and got fainter by the minute (bit like me in that respect) to describe the difference between acute and chronic pain. It is difficult to keep to the subject when most people just want to talk about their own personal situation, but he did very well in the circumstances, although I am left with a nagging feeling that this is all controlled by the mind (this is not what was suggested by the way, merely what I was thinking).

The afternoon was spent at the hairdressers.  “Do something!” I pleaded....”I feel like a down-trodden, mumsy, saddo”.  The hairdresser worked his magic.  It was painful sitting in the chair for an hour, but it was worth it.  I can feel crap, but I don’t need to look it...

Today’s lemon rating:      5.5 out of 10  (would have been 6 if not for the hairdresser)