Time

Yesterday this particular online groceries delivery man recognised me. He hadn't been on my route for a couple of years - the supermarket seems to switch them around regularly and with one or two morose exceptions they are to a man affable and friendly.  He helped me unload my fortnightly order and asked how my back was.

When he last saw me I was on strong codeine-based painkillers and had to lie on the floor for a good part of the day.  I remember he commiserated with me at the time and told me how he'd had similar problems before taking his current job and now he hauled heavy crates of groceries in and out of his van all day. Yesterday as he passed me the packets of salad, tins of sardines and the bottles of extra virgin olive oil he said that he believed that all this heavy lifting had actually strengthened his back.  Using the muscles, moving, bending at the knees,  keeping the weight close to the body.

He's right. I'm not where I was two or three years ago. The pain levels in the back are much lower and I'm off the codeine.  I'm moving more freely, with greater confidence.   I didn't want to inflict on him details of the gut and digestive stuff which has taken over as the number one health nuisance but seeing him again is good reminder.

A little gratitude is in order. Heaven knows I'm not where I want to be healthwise, but looking back it's clear that nature and time are doing their job.  Slowly.  With a bit of luck and a prayer the progress will continue.

Festina Lente

It's part of testing my limits and strength I suppose.  I had a wobble this morning - did too much, attempted to lift something just a little bit heavier than I can manage.  I didn't actually lift it but the slight bending and even the partial effort caused a back muscle to twinge.  I think I'm OK but I've scared myself.

When I get caught up in a task or project something akin to obsession - enthusiasm's shadow - can take over and common sense is all too easily cast aside.   I can't afford to let this happen in the future, it's how I first  injured my lower back four years ago.  Vigilance has to be the watchword when it comes to health, and to be truthful I'm not sure I know how to change, how not to be caught out again.

And I so want to have my life back.  I'm doing more, trying new things, making plans to venture out of the house.  All good but it would be terrible to let obsession and impatience ruin it.  For now at any rate, caution trumps everything else.

Now to let the panic subside.  Wait.  Think.  Breathe.  I need my guardian angel to materialise at moments like the one this morning, tap me on the shoulder and remind me.  Festina lente.  

Buds

Calm after recent upheavals. Rest and relaxation. Reading U is for Undertow and catching up on Kinsey Milhone as she ferrets out more murderous goings-on in California. It's a relief to be reducing the painkillers. A visit from the mobile hairdresser helps as well. All this serenity is unusual on the day of a full moon (of course it doesn't apply to the global economy, but I'm not even going there).

And on a dank November morning the first buds of a Christmas cactus, flourishing in the moist warmth of the bathroom.

Therapy

Just about a year ago, as Saturn approached the ascendant, the ligaments of my lower back and sacro-iliac joints gave up the ghost. The centre, literally, could no longer hold. Displacement, severe muscle spasm and weakness and flare ups of acute inflamation and pain. Since then a repeat prescription for cocodamol, a round of alternative and conventional medical treatments and far too much TV.

It's dawning on me that the job is to rebuild the centre - and what is more central than the pelvis and lower back, and what they represent? Or rather to give it space to do the rebuilding. I imagined my centre could look after itself while I led a busy life but apparently this was not the case. Maybe this was the only way to get my attention. After much inner resistance I am revisiting relaxation and meditation techniques.

Six weeks ago I ventured outside again. Ten yards and back home, fifteen the following day, then twenty. Today I reached the next street up from mine. The first goal is to reach the river. At a guess, I'm just just under halfway there. The strangest feeling, learning to walk again. Each time I go out, a mixture of pleasure mixed with terror lest there is a setback. Learning to trust this body that, seemingly, has turned against me for a season.

For the first time for a long while I hanker after the scent of essential oils. Lavender scented body lotion, orange and ginger shower gel. The physical as a source of peace and pleasure.

A desire as well to get creative. Photographs. Blogging.

About the same time as the back went, the computer hard drive died, and with it my stock of photographs. Right now I'm using a friend's PC, loaned on approval. No photography programmes so no new photos.

But thank god for Flickr. I'll be reviewing my on line stockpile and posting some of them here from time to time - at least for as long as the back stability lasts.

Therapy, you might call it.

Stretching

The shoulder and neck are better, though not cured. Too much time on the computer, using the mouse and the dull throbbing starts. Moderation, that most elusive of qualities, is my holy grail.

The immediate goal to work on the cow face pose, which with my hypermobile joints I used to find so easy in yoga class. One arm reaching backwards over the shoulder, the other behind the back reaching up. The hands clasp. Once I was proud of my prowess, glowed when the teacher praised my flexibility. Yes, I know, self-congratulation is at variance with the non-competitive spirit of yoga, but that didn't stop me. The karmic comeuppance is that these days I can just about manage the pose on one side only. Impossible to move the right arm upwards behind my back.

The difference between a year ago and now is still dispiriting. A lesson is humility. Also in self-forgiveness: nobody made me sit at the laptop for hours at a time without taking a break

I'm supposed to do exercises three times a day. Some days it's only twice but Sheila the physio is pleased with progress and the gap between our appointments has lengthened from weekly to fortnightly to monthly. At my request - she knows I do massage and is supportive - we name the muscles, bones and joints beneath her fingers as she works, massaging and stretching contracted muscles, neck then arm then shoulder, me on the couch, her standing alongside. A litany, a recitative: Pecs minor, scalenes, subscapularis, levator scapulae, coracoid process, C4 and C5 ....

When we tire of A&P we talk about cats, hers and mine. Or gardening.

I turn onto my back. She places both hands, one over the other, on the injured shoulder, leans her weight forward onto her arms. Clavicle and sternum are pushed towards the spine and my lung capacity is reduced by what feels like 90%. She's a large woman in her early forties, as tall as I am and a former shot putter, solid and muscular. The effect is not dissimilar (I imagine) to being run over. I close my eyes, wonder if my skeleton can take it, imagine the pistol-shot crack of fracturing bone.

At the end of the session the muscles in the right shoulder and arm feel blessedly looser. Silent prayers of thanks for the NHS. And for Sheila. We've almost, in a way, become friends. Not quite, the professional relationship takes precedence, as it should.

But I like her, and I'm grateful.

****

A visit to a National Trust garden last week. I couldn't tear myself away from the spiralling, unfurling ferns. Uncurling. Releasing. Stretching out of themselves.

Timing

The massage therapist, F, has discovered the cause of the shoulder problem. Tight pectorals. Those of you who read Dale's blog will know that he addressed this condition recently and I'm here to tell you that he was spot on. The pain is in the right upper quadrant of the back, spreading over the shoulder to the right arm. The range of movement of this arm was becoming increasingly limited and I was getting far too accustomed to permanent discomfort.

Lo and behold the pectoral muscles on my right side are contracted and as tight as piano wire. At the end of an excruciating but wonderful session I sit on the couch, legs dangling, wrapped in thick white towels. F kneels behind me and pushes his knee into my thoracic area at the same time pulling the shoulders. This is how you need to sit, he says. Keep those shoulders back. Do yoga. Do the Camel. The Locust. When you are standing, don't fold your arms in front of you. Give yourself regular massages where the pectoral muscle joins the sternum. And I always thought I had good posture.

Deep tissue massage with a male therapist seemed the path to take because I sensed the problem needed some heavy-duty physical work. F is good. He looks to be in his thirties, a bit shorter than me, chunky. In addition to skill and strength he possesses the gift of making his female clients feel safe. Open and friendly but everything strictly appropriate. There's more work to be done, and possibly some ultrasound, but I am encouraged.

Of course there are twinges of guilt and even shame to go along with the physical ache: this shouldn't be happening to me as an (occasional) massage practitioner. I shouldn't have been this neglectful of my own body. Oh well. But it has to be admitted, an unbeatable way to understand in depth the working of the individual muscles is to develop a problem or two yourself. A gold standard Anatomy & Physiology refresher course, you could say.

The title of Dale's post also strikes me as significant. Opening the heartspace.

****

The sun is high in the sky: the golden days of summer are here.

Energy

Half way through the yoga class Susanna talks us through the Padma Mudra. We kneel, palms facing the floor, wrist against wrist, fingers hanging downwards.

“The roots of the lotus flower”, says Susanna, “reaching deep into the mud.” We press our wrists together.

We reverse the position, drawing the hands through. The fingers point heavenwards, thumbs and little fingers of both hands touching, the remaining fingers forming a flower shape. Susanna guides us into a short meditation on the lotus in full bloom.

The silence and the simple grace of the mudra are powerful.

The class continues. Cobra. Camel. Resting Locust. Spinal twist. Corpse posture. The breathwork the string holding the beads together. Time to go home. My right shoulder still twinges but for the first time in many days I am calm and my body is temporarily at peace. This calls for celebration: long-stemmed yellow lilies and a taxi instead of the bus.

The young woman driver is dark and wiry and has an accent.

“Are you Polish?”, I ask.

“No” she replies, “Brazilian.”

She tells her story. A failed marriage to a Brit whom she had met in Brazil. Three years ago they parted but by now she has a young son.She decides to stay in England: this is the only country that her boy has ever known. She works in a supermarket then decides she needs more flexibility, so goes into the taxi business.The last time she saw her family in South America was seven years ago.

At a red traffic light she spots an English friend. Leaning forward over the steering wheel she waves animatedly.

"When I was a child in Brazil I never imagined my life would be like this", she says without self pity. A simple statement of fact. She didn't sound unhappy. Not at all.

Change of Pace

My right shoulder and upper back are in a bad way. Muscle spasm and it's getting worse. Pain has started to spread down the right arm as well.

"Not more than 20 minutes at the computer without a correspondingly long break", said the nice young man who is my new remedial massage therapist yesterday.

Which means that habits will have to change. It's not work that's doing the damage. I have frequent breaks from the computer and am more than happy to take them. It's blogging, blog reading and generally surfing the net at home.

When I'm writing a blogpost I go at the first and second draft for an hour, maybe more, without moving. Then maybe a few hours, maybe a day later I might revise for another hour. If I posted the first draft you wouldn't understand a word. Neither would I. I'm not a naturally fast or ordered thinker or writer and the drafting and editing become part of the thinking process. I lose myself, my sense of awareness. in the whole deeply enjoyable, compulsive exercise. Only on closing the lid of the laptop after a marathon session do I realise that my body has been suffering. And I haven't even mentioned the lengthy delights of a wet afternoon's blog reading.

Not good. The rules of health aren't any different for me than for the rest of humanity.

At least for a while until things improve physically I'm going to experiment with shorter posts, so that I'm not fretting to get back to the computer and finish the project. I've started to investigate blogs that make a feature of brevity and it will be an interesting change of pace. More stand-alone photographs. Maybe some link posts. Blog reading for limited times only.

I'm alarmed that I've allowed things to get to this stage, in spite of regular yoga classes. I know this stuff, for heaven's sake. There's nothing new in what the massage therapist said. And yet I enjoy my online life and don't want to give it up. I need a special back chair. I need to set gentle limits. I need to get well and to treat my body kindly.