Back to Pain in the .....

 

My brain has ben functioning well these past two days and I love it. It feels wonderful to be able to plan and executive simple tasks.

I am not talking about anything particularly fantastic - just every day 'things' such as:

  • Filing some paperwork without getting so woolly-headed that I just keep moving papers from one end of the desk to the other without ever putting anything away. 
  • Cooking food and loading the dishwasher without having to make such a huge effort that I can barely drag myself from the kitchen to the living room afterwards
  • Going up the three flights of stairs at home without stopping every two steps and hanging on to the bannister for fear my muddled sense of balance might let me down
  • Reading a whole chapter of a book without re-reading the same paragraph three times to ensure I am actually absorbing what I am reading.

You know, just stuff like that. I must say that I really enjoy it when I feel 'normal'.

Having waxed lyrical about my brain's performance, I am immediately brought down to earth by my body. IT is not performing that well. Just when my gut and my head give me a break, my back takes over. It never ceases to amaze me how ageing back pain is! As I walk about half-bent forward, in half-size steps, wincing with every move, I feel like an octogenarian.

My Mum - who is herself a spritely 82 year old - keeps reminding me that I must factor ageing in my recovery. I KNOW she is right but I don't FEEL it. I have never been one for hankering after my youth because, to be honest, I didn't like being young very much. Frankly, I found it to be a pain in the a***!

I liked my forties  - in my mind I still see myself as I used to look during my fourth decade. When I look in the mirror, or worse when I catch sight of myself in a shop window, or worse still when I see myself on photos, I have a shock! 

I liked my forties because they felt like a time of youth with maturity and power. When I think about getting older, I am very happy to contemplate being in my eighties or beyond. They feel to me like a time of age with wisdom and influence. In the same way as I didn't much enjoy the mental aspect of my youth, I can't say that I am enjoying the physical aspect of middle age, with its spread made worse by medication. I feel heavy and cumbersome. I AM heavy and cumbersome. I huff and puff like an old steam engine and my back is burning like a furnace. This combination might work for a locomotive but it sure as hell doesn't work for me.

Now that my little chuff-chuff of a brain seems to be back on its rails, my back feels like I've been run over by a train. Typical eh? Never mind, I'll just have to keep on blowing off steam until ......   until ....... until I run out of steam :0)