A sore back accommodates a multitude of conditions, pain and discomfort. It can explain a variety of ailments ranging from muscular pain, nerve damage, disc displacement to broken bones. It may be life threatening or life limiting but rarely is it without some kind of impact on the physical or psychological wellbeing of the individual affected. Inevitably there will also be collateral damage to others affected by the level of disability experienced, the quality and intensity of the pain, alleviated only by good pain relief, effective back pain management and your partner knowing when to keep her mouth shut.
The Lion, when he was just a boy, fell from a significant height landing on his feet and jarring his back. And over the years deduced that this was the most likely event to which he has attributed over 40 years of pain and immobility. The sore back is as much a constant feature of our marriage as our bank account, and fluctuates just as frequently. It has, more than any other event, including having children, defined and proscribed much of what he can and cannot do in his adult life. We have lived with it cheek by jowl our entire married life, it’s a harlot, an unwelcome addition to our natural marital equilibrium.
We both agree this fall was the most credible explanation for what many years later was diagnosed as spondilolysis during one of our many forays into the health service to get to an explanation and hopefully a remedy. Spondilolysis is a condition more commonly associated with sports professionals, and as an avid footballer I suppose it befits him, or at least entitles him to align this debilitating condition with the career threatening injuries of his sporting colleagues . Sir Ian Botham is one of the most famous with this condition. He accquired it as a result of flexing his spine during the technique that brought him fame in his fast bowl. This flexion caused the bottom vertebrae to compress and crack. In a similar way ot ended the Lion’s football ‘career’ when he was 35 years old.
The Lion’s MRI scans revealed three of the bottom vertebrae were compressed; each disc that acts as a cushion between these bones has long since lost its functionality and instead serves only to irritate and exacerbate the nerve ends that surround the spinal column. Occasionally, but increasingly frequently, sitting, standing, stooping or squatting causes a massive unseen reaction beneath his skin. The muscles start to spasm resulting in extraordinary searing pain that jerks spasmodically and rips through his lower back muscle like an electric shock resulting in total immobility. And these episodes can be extreme resulting in hospitalisation at worst and major drug intervention at the very least.
The body naturally attempts to protect the exposed nerves most likely to ignite his pain so his spine will adopt an s-shape that pushes his hips out of alignment and makes him look remarkably like Quasimodo. It also results in unusual pressure on the cracked vertebrae that in turn perpetuates the cycle of pain and discomfort, that thereafter inflames the muscles and leaves him immobilised; unable to stand or walk. An acute episode can last anywhere between 2 days to 2 months and can be triggered by the most innocuous activity from leaning over to pick up paper, to trying to activate the brake whilst driving his truck in a more recent and concerning incident. That one cost him his job.
There have been many significant dramas associated with the ‘sore back’, and we shall visit these as and when the desire takes me over the coming days. Today’s account is about setting the scene and letting the enormity of this crippling situation settle into the consciousness. It will provide a little insight into the challenges that are presented and how we have dealt with these. It will be.a different journey to my imjury for I cannot see into his inner soul, his physical experiences can only be viewed as an onlooker a bystander to his pain and the psychological damage that it has left him with I cannot fathom and only begin to imagine.
These observations on this sore back will be mine, the impact and affect they have made on my Lion and how he has managed that and, of course as many of these experiences were joint, I therefore appoint myself qualified to report and share them with you.
For the first tale, I’m going to take you one what was our first ever holiday without our kids………………..join me next time to find out more.
Life’s little dramas blog 