Reinventing myself

This would be not the first time my baseline has been shifted rather drastically, but it's the first time in a few years. I should check up on my numerology ... who knows, there may be some useful pattern emerging.

Sad puppy... ouchies!!!

The MRI shows not 1 but 2 lower back discs have gone walkabout. L5/S1 is a little bit bug-eyed but passable. L4/L5 is a different matter ... on side view, the worst of it looks like a gloop of ice cream running down the side of a cone on a hot summer day. Sadly, however, I can't simply wipe this one back up. The dribble of intervertebral fluid is nuzzling up against my sciatic nerve, which is totally getting the irrits. To its credit, the usually solitary nerve is growing accustomed to its new snuggle mate and is obligingly starting to conduct nervous impulses again, albeit reluctantly and somewhat aberrantly. What has been a largely numb patch of skin over my right foot and big toe, and a small ways up the side of my calf, is slowly "waking back up" and giving me a sensation not unlike a bad burn. Charming. But that's better than no signal, assures me the physio. I'm also able to lift my big toe again just a little, so I'm not doing so much of a duck walk as I have been this past fortnight, or tripping on the cracks in the pavement quite so much. That's definite progress for which I am definitely grateful.

And so starts a battle of the bulge of a different kind. How to get those suckers to suck themselves back in?! The physio recommends assessment by a neuro$$$urgeon, and the GP concur$$$. Just ringing the guy's rooms to book a consultation makes me break out in a sweat, but no need to panic just yet - the soonest he can see me is just over 2 months away. Plenty of time for contemplation, should I need it, and for saving up some pocket money.

Meantime the GP is recommending a new form of painkiller to deal with the neuropathy. Very kind of her, I'm sure, but the sensations - unpleasant and/or uncomfortable as they are - are my only feedback on the state of my anatomy and physiology. How will I know where the new boundaries are if I'm cotton-wooled from the consequences of overstepping them? I appreciate that most people want to leave a GP's rooms with their symptoms alleviated via magic bullet. I'm not most people.

I also appreciate that most people of my age do little more activity than walk from their vehicle to their office chair and back, and then to their lounge chair at home as they settle in front of the TV. I'm not that kind of most people either. What I want to know is which of my 5 bicycles I can ride without worsening my condition, and how far, and over what terrain. Would Pilates help over the yoga that I've done since the mid-80s? When do I need to lie down after standing up at my stand-up desk for a while? Feel-good pills will give me anything but these answers. They'll be going "yes, all good, all happy" while my nerves could be screaming into the silence and slowly dying on me.

I don't think so.

One last question - how does largely numb skin still manage to itch incessantly when it's been been mosquito-bitten?? There's a PhD in that.