Mysterious Ways

After my first day of writing I hobbled to my bed after necking four paracetamol and rubbing on half a tube of pain relief gel over my lower back. For regular followers you will know that I was inflicted with something bulging from my lower spine which pressed into the nerves. As it got worse the more I became crippled.

Looking back I think a combination of an unhealthy life style due to terrible work related stress and the subconscious measures I took to counteract it, like heavy drinking and excess eating of pleasure food, and thus the weight gain attributed to this was one of the two factors which finally broke my spine’s resilience to take any more.

The second factor I now know was the subconscious stress I was feeling about giving up a secure job and my career. My muscles had been slowly tightening over the time I worked out my extended notice period. I had a constant stiff neck and more knots in my muscles than a sailor’s rope. If I thought it could not get worse then I have never been so wrong in my life.

I had been seeing a Chiropractor three times a week after deciding to give the conventional medical system a miss. Using Chiropractic care is like going on a diet. There is no pill or procedure which will give instant relief. You may have to go through months of hard work (the more serious the complaint the longer it takes) before you see any beneficial effects and the first two months are the hardest.

Tuesday the 10^th of May 2011. 01.00 am

I awoke screaming.

My right leg was on fire. Fires so intense it would have made Hell itself feel as cold as the Arctic. I tried to straighten myself but even the slightest movement sent pulsating flashes from my lower back, down my leg, to fuel the pain that burned so terribly.

My heart was beating so fast I thought I was having a heart attack and the sweat started to stream down my face. At that point if a surgeon had said to me the only way to stop this pain would be to have my leg amputated I would have signed the consent form there and then.  In fact if I could have reached a knife I would have carved off my leg myself.

Slowly, very slowly I raised myself through gritted teeth that where biting down so hard a piece of tooth came loose, but eventually after my personal fight with the devil I was leaning my back against the head board. I knew I had to get out of bed but this was easier said than done as just the slightest movement sent me screeching for relief.

Slowly I rocked from side to side until I rolled over and just like the children’s nursery rhyme, I fell out of bed. I was now on all fours and had to stand up and straightened my back before I could even think about getting any relief.

For ten minutes I tried, but that final push to get me to my feet is pain I never want to experience again, and one which women going through child birth must be praised for, being able to handle that for hour after hour is unbelievable.

I necked back more pain killers and used the last half of the relief gel on my back and leg and started the slow descent down my stairs to the freezer. In here I had an ice pack which I had just purchased and after filling the hot water bottle I settled as best I could on the sofa. I had two pillows to support my back and the ice pack pressed against my spine freezing the pain, and the hot water bottle resting on my leg smoothing the tension away.

More importantly I had the laptop on my knees and a nice cup of tea. It was now 02.30am and I started writing. By 05.00 the sun was peeping around the closed curtains and I took a break to refreeze my ice pack and refresh my hot water bottle. It became a routine throughout the day and before I knew what had happened it was nine thirty at night and I had been writing for eighteen hours. My mind was exhausted and so was I as I hobbled back to bed.

They say God works in mysterious ways and over the next three months he worked his painful hands over me because every night at 01.00 I would awake in screaming pain and would end up sitting on the sofa with pillows, ice pack, hot water bottle, cup of tea and my laptop.

In these three months 112,000 words flew out of my imagination and my first rough draft (and it was very rough) was complete.