My spine + a surprising amount of pee

This blog is mostly for myself so this is, in a sense, the opposite of clickbait… You have been warned. Flee now.

My advice to you is… Never get hit by an articulated truck…

I am writing it on Monday morning.

So exactly two weeks after the bottom of my spine went (as I understand it) out of alignment and shooting pains started.

It happens occasionally, ever since I got hit by an articulated truck in 1991.

My left shoulder blade was pulverised in two places; the back of my head hit the edge of a low brick wall; and, although it wasn’t obvious at the time, my spine was damaged a bit.

When I phoned up my osteopath two weeks ago, it turned out he had died two years ago.

So I went to another osteopath in London two Saturdays and he mostly cured the problem.

Last Monday, I also went to an osteopath near Brighton – I made the appointment not knowing if I could see the osteopath in London. He helped too.

But, on Thursday, a coughing fit buggered-up my semi-recovering spine again. And phone calls on Friday and Saturday failed to get hold of my new London osteopath.

Let us hope that he, too, has not died on me.

I have been sleeping on the floor for the last fortnight. It’s awkward to get up off the floor in the morning but, once I’m up, I am fairly OK if I move carefully and don’t cough. Unfortunately, in parallel with the spine problem, I currently have nose sniffles and a hacking cough caught from an 8-year-old which won’t go away. The cold, not the 8-year-old.

Anyway, I have been waking up repeatedly every night for a fortnight but can never remember details, so I thought – largely for myself – I would take audio notes on my iPhone each time I woke up. 

And, last night…

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03.21
I dreamt I was directing a documentary about the 2012 London Olympic Games. It was being shot in my living room at night. This was progressing quite well but was complicated and my dream was intercut with parts of the Rambo: Last Blood movie trailer which I saw last night. This is ironic. I am certainly currently no Rambo. I got up on my knees and urinated into the red pee-receptacle which my eternally-un-named friend bought me years ago in case I ever got caught short in the middle of nowhere in my then car.

03.44
I woke up with a coughing fit. I had been dreaming about my forehead with its wrinkled skin which I had vaguely mentioned in a blog over a month ago. I got up on my knees and urinated into the red pee-receptacle. Again.

05.20
Woke up with shooting pains along my left shoulder. Managed to wee into the red pee-receptacle.

05.31
Shooting pains along my right shoulder. I half got up to try to wee in my pee-receptacle – again – and there were horrendous, searing shooting pains at the base of my spine. When I tried to lie down again, uncontrollable coughing fits gave me severe shooting pains at the base of my spine. There was a lot of out-loud “Argh! Ahh! Ow! Argh!”s as there was no-one else around to hear.

07.20
Very very painful at the base of my spine as I slowly tried to get up off the floor into a kneeling position to wee into the red pee-receptacle. Managed to raise myself by holding on to the corners of two sofas. I sleep angled between the corners of the two sofas so I can, indeed, do this. Again, a lot of “Oopph! Ooh! Argh! Ahhh! Ahhh! Aghhh!” going on.

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My sleeping companion when I have trouble getting upstairs

Well that’s it. 

Another attempt to get hold of the London osteopath today and, if not, then I will contact the next on my list of recommended osteos.

I did warn you.

That blog was mostly for myself.

There seemed to be an awful lot of pee involved.

Donald Trump’s message to the world on climate change… and my bad back

My spine got damaged in 1991. I got hit by a large articulated truck. It has never mended properly. My spine, not the large articulated truck. I think the truck survived unscathed.

Occasionally, though thankfully rarely, if I twist or bend slightly oddly, my bones go out of alignment at the bottom of my spine (I think that’s what happens) and I have to sleep on the floor for three nights which, somehow, sorts the problem out.

It is Saturday morning now. The bones went out of alignment on Monday morning and I am still moving slowly around inside my house with the aid of two walking sticks and a stick which picks things up off the floor or low-lying surfaces. Every now and then it feels like an anarchic invisible presence stabs a long sharp sword into my back at the bottom of the spine..

I am seeing a new osteopath later this morning. I discovered on Wednesday that the excellent osteopath I have gone to since maybe 1992 died two years ago. So it goes. It gave me quite an unexpected shock. You don’t expect healthy medical people to die before you. Certainly not osteopaths. I mean, he was a strong man.

But back to me… and my back.

I also have a cough. Not the normal and – I’m told – very annoying dry cough which I have had since my early twenties and which I inherited from my father who had it throughout his known life. This is a dry, hacking cough given to me a couple of weeks ago by an eight-year-old who, in all other respects, is entirely amiable.

So, every now and then, I suddenly get slight coughing fits which result in what feels like 10-15 rapid atomic explosions at the bottom of my spine with the pain then zooming out in all directions.

What I am trying to say is that, although I have been sleeping a lot, I have been occasionally waking up unexpectedly. And I had a dream. It is 5.00am in the morning as I write this. I woke up unexpectedly, in the middle of a dream.

Yesterday, there were worldwide protests about climate change.

I had a dream about President Trump. Never a good thing. It woke me up. He was speaking about climate change. His speech went something like this. Truly. Would I lie to you?

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The whole Global Warming thing is #FakeNews – Did you see that footage of the big winds in the Caribbean recently? Big winds. Cold. Wet. Big winds. Not hot weather! What are those guys in the Bahamas even thinking about? Build your houses of brick! Have they never read The Three Little Pigs? Dumb.

Global Warming is #FakeNews started by #BadHilary to hide her crimes and made worse by #BadObama’s policies. But I saw a Fox TV program on rising ocean levels last night. Those Fox guys are great. Great. And rising sea levels is real. It’s all real. Really real. And dangerous.

Rising sea levels will affect important US infrastructures – oil installations, golf courses and historic national sites like Mar-a-Lago in Florida

But it’s easy to fix, right? I figured out how this morning over breakfast. I have time for breakfast, right? Right. And no-one else has thought of this.

My people told me about a Wikipedia news report on this Greek guy called Archie Meads. Hundreds of years ago. People have forgotten him. But I rediscovered him. He was a stable genius. It takes one to know one, right? 

And Archie Meads had this idea. If you take something out of water, the water fills the space where you’ve taken out the object. Right? Obvious. But people have forgotten that. I figured it out again.

So the fastest, quickest, simplest way – it’s quick and simple, right? – is to kill all the whales in the oceans. Take them out and  that will create all these big, big gaps. And the water will rush in to fill the gaps. It’s pure science. And the ocean levels will get lower.

I have asked the guys at the Pentagon to work out a plan to do this as quickly as possible.

Kill the whales and keep America great. And safe. And dry.

It’s simple.

I think my body may be starting to fall apart. Perhaps leeches are the answer.

Yesterday was a hotchpotch of a day, starting with the unsettling news that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il had died. There may be more about this in my blog in four or five months time.

I have been hobbling a bit every since a humorous incident last month in which my left foot got stuck in a Wellington boot in a shoe shop and the Wellington had to be cut off me with a large pair of scissors. Before that, there had been much pulling by various people of my toes and heel with the result that the outside edge of my left heel has, ever since, been painful when I stand on it in my bare feet, though not when I wear shoes. But it has now started to occasionally be painful in shoes, too, so I guess I will have to go to my GP and maybe try to get it X-rayed. Two visits to my osteopath have not cured the problem, which he thinks is caused by problems in my toes, not my heel.

The humorous Wellington boot incident happened on 10th November; it is now 20th December. I have had problems ever since.

When you are younger, you think old people move slower because it is in their nature. As you get older, you realise it is often because of pain or the anticipation of pain.

Now there is something for me to look forward to.

Well, it seems I don’t even have to look forward. It is here.

My left shoulder is also giving me occasional pain after a visit to an osteopath (not my own) who was going cheap in a Daily Telegraph offer. She poked and prodded the flat stretch between my left shoulder and neck, which was damaged when I was hit by a large truck while standing on the pavement in 1991 – or was it 1990?- I can’t be bothered to check – and it has been more painful since then.

I think I was born too early.

The 19th century was all about mechanical inventions. The 20th century was electrical and electronic advances. The 21st century looks set to be an era of biological discoveries and advancement.

I was born too early.

John Ward with some Malcolm Hardee Awards for Comedy

I was thinking this yesterday lunchtime and then mad John Ward, designer of the three annual Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards and eccentric inventor of bizarre contraptions, e-mailed to tell me he had designed the ultimate bird table and I could see it on YouTube.

I think it has some echo of the villain’s lair in The Spy Who Loved Me crossed with the Martian tripods in War of The Worlds – someone else who saw it just thought it might attract foxes.

Perhaps the 21st century will not be all biology.

Perhaps eccentricity will proliferate.

I then had to go to hospital to have a minor operation: the surgical removal of two growths – well, OK, two little bobbly things were cut off my skin by a highly-trained and I presume highly-paid consultant with a scalpel. He is, in all seriousness, professionally called a ‘Lumps & Bumps’ consultant and, like 50% of doctors, has a good sense of humour.

One of the lumps – well, as I said, it was more like a little bobbly thing of soft flesh – has been growing on the side of my neck for a couple of years or so; the other has been growing, mini-mushroom-like, on the inside of my upper left leg like my body was trying to grow a second, more impressive penis (not difficult) beside the original one.

I don’t know which was more embarrassing: having the two bobbly things sliced off or having the consultant comment unfavourably on my bright yellow socks.

As this happened in a private hospital, we (my accompanying friend and I) were given tea and two Quality Street chocolates afterwards by the very amiable Irish nurse who told me that, if you give blood in Edgware, they give you cup of tea, a sandwich of your choice and crisps. As I have shamefully not given blood for about three years, this is tempting.

Blood transfusion centres used to just give you a cup of tea and a selection of biscuits. Things are looking up, though my friend opined she has never fully understood why doctors stopped using leeches and ‘bleeding’ patients on a regular basis.

For hundreds of years, people seemed to think that it was an effective and positively healthy thing to do. Can they really all have been wrong?

She may have a point, but where can one get leeches nowadays?

On a more 21st century subject, she discovered her O2 dongle does not work with Apple’s new Lion operating system because O2 have not pulled their finger out and updated their system. The Lion OS has been in use for months and O2 has sold customers dongles that no longer work. There may be biological advances in the 21st century but one thing seems likely to remain the same – all British telecom companies are equal.

‘Incompetent wankers’ seems to be the suitable phrase which covers this.

When I got home after the (admittedly not what anyone could call major) operation and the major trauma of realising O2 is selling products which do not work, I was almost immediately phoned by Adrian ‘Nosey’ Wigley: always a cheerily uplifting experience. I do not think we have talked this century, though I did mention him at the end of a blog a couple of months ago.

I booked him on a few TV programmes in the 1980s and/or the 1990s to showcase his impressive talent for playing Spanish Eyes on an electric organ with his nose.

His nose has not lost its musical ability and I am surprised he has not popped up on Britain’s Got Talent.

He lives in Brownhills in the West Midlands which, when last I heard, was home to several Guinness world record holders.

I think it’s the tedium that gets to them.

I hope, in the 21st century, it is eccentricity which proliferates.

Life can be so uneventful.

I got virtually no sleep last night

Beware! If you cannot bear hearing medical moans from people, read no further.

I got virtually no sleep last night.

I tried sleeping on the floor; I tried sleeping on the bed.

In a blog earlier this year, I explained why I have been unable to read a book since I got hit by a truck in 1991 when I was standing on a pavement in Borehamwood.

One result of the accident which did not become clear until well after it happened – and, alas, well after compensation was agreed with the insurance company – was that there has been some damage to the base of my spine.

The hospital had X-rayed by shoulder because my collar bone had been broken in two places – ‘pulverised’ was the rather alarming medical word used – but they had not X-rayed my spine.

What seems to have happened is that I was thrown back by the impact of the truck and I fell backwards with my spine fairly straight, then the back of my head hit the edge of a low brick wall maybe six inches off the ground. This meant my head stopped but my spine continued downwards for another six inches before the base of my back hit the pavement, putting some small bones at the bottom of my spine slightly out of alignment.

At least, that is what I understand people now tell me happened.

My osteopath cannot fully rectify the problem as I do not fully relax – I suspect because I am just not used to lying semi-naked, face-down on a bench while a large man leans over me, interlinks his arms with mine and jerks me sharply backwards – I have obviously led too sheltered a life.

Anyway, the damage to my spine rarely shows itself unless I twist my torso in an odd way to stoop down or lift something. I then put the bones slightly out of place and get shooting pains, usually in my left hip, sometimes in my right hip, which make it difficult for me to walk. But this can usually be cured by sleeping on the floor for three nights.

I have no idea why.

If it really bad, it can take a fortnight of sleeping on the floor.

But – with luck – this only happens once every nine months or so.

As the problem mends, the point of pain moves from the inside of my hip (which actually has nothing wrong with it) to the base of my spine (which is where the actual pain problem is).

The last time it happened – maybe six or nine months ago – it was slightly different.

I felt pain shooting along my waist in a line from the base of my spine, then down my left leg to the ankle or, sometimes, to the knee.

People I know who have had sciatica told me:

“That is sciatica.”

I went to my osteopath. He said:

“It is very strange. Every time someone has come to me with sciatica, I have manipulated the feet and it has gone away. I have absolutely no idea why. I am thinking of writing a paper about it.”

He manipulated my feet.

The pain went away.

This time, my lower back has been aching very slightly for a couple of days – it happens if I slouch on a soft sofa seat and is usually cured by sleeping on the floor – and there has been some slight pain along my waist and at the top of my right leg under the buttock (I know – too much information) and in my right hip… and a shooting pain down the side of my right leg which moves around depending on my position.

So, last night – the floor, but no sleep.

On the floor; on the bed; on the floor; on the bed; on the floor.

I could not get a position where there was not a shooting pain. Not horrendous pain; just slight pain. Not an ache; a slight shooting pain. But enough to stop me getting to sleep.

Eight hours.

There is no moral to this blog. No insight into anything.

I just did not have anything to blog about this morning and eight hours of moving your legs and hips about, trying to be comfortable, does not, I found, concentrate the mind.

In some future blog, I may witter on about how I have more confidence in Chinese medicine than in Western medicine – because Western medicine aims to stop or to mask the symptoms quickly whereas Chinese medicine aims to cure the cause of the symptoms.

But, frankly, a quick masking of the symptoms would not go amiss this morning.

Look – it is your own fault – I warned you at the start.

If you cannot bear hearing medical moans from people, read no further.

Tomorrow, normal blogging should be resumed…