Backing up
July 27th 2009 10:10
About three weeks ago I did something unpleasant to my lower back - on the right, above the hip. I think it was when we were carrying in large sheets of gibboard: hoisting them off the trailer, and into the house. They ain't pleasant to carry; their sheer size and unpredictability makes them awkward to manoeuvre around corners. (Do you know manoeuvre is one of the few words I can never spell without thinking about it - very hard? That crazy combination of vowels after the 'n'. I know it's the same as oeuvre, but that doesn't help, since I don't seem to be able to spell that either. )
Anyway, I went to the doctor, (as I've probably mentioned in here) and he sent me to the osteopath. But I had a whopper of a cold on the day I had my appointment, so I didn't make it. Finally today I got back there.
Instead of one of the regular osteopaths in this practice, I got the locum, a pleasant chap from the UK who's moved here with his five kids (and presumably his wife). He
apologised for the large windows with no blinds in front of which I had to partially undress - considering we were five flights up it was hardly a big deal.
I had no real idea what an osteopath might do to me, and felt a bit nervous actually. I explained how the back had become sore, that I'd had pains in the same area over many years when I had on various occasions unexpectedly twisted it, that it wasn't particularly bad at the moment (the week I hurt it, it was the sorest it's ever been), and that I didn't have pins and needles down my leg. I mentioned that the left leg was shorter than the right - and that perhaps it was to do with the back? He assured me that that was very likely to be the case.
And set about manipulating bits of my back that internally were thinking, What the heck? He twisted me around and pulled me against him while I asking me to pull away; he bent bits up and pushed them back down; he pushed inside things around as though they'd shift out of the way given enough incentive.
It would all have been rather hilarious if I hadn't been expecting any minute that something wold snap in half. But nothing did, of course. I guess he does this all day long, wrapping people about themselves like a piece of soft toffee - and it's the soft stuff inside he's more interested in rather than the bits that like to break - especially as you get older and start wondering which are the best wrinkle creams to apply to that increasingly craggy-looking thing that appears in the mirror each morning.
At the end of all this I wrapped myself up in my clothes again (the trousers had stayed on) and he said I'd possibly need to come back for another couple of sessions - I wouldn't need to think I'd be coming back hundreds of times. In fact, if I felt things had improved enough I needn't come back at all. However, I've made another appointment. It would be good to have both legs standing together on the ground at even length, rather than feeling as though I'm sometimes rolling along like a drunken sailor.
Photo by Phototrope
Anyway, I went to the doctor, (as I've probably mentioned in here) and he sent me to the osteopath. But I had a whopper of a cold on the day I had my appointment, so I didn't make it. Finally today I got back there.
Instead of one of the regular osteopaths in this practice, I got the locum, a pleasant chap from the UK who's moved here with his five kids (and presumably his wife). He
I had no real idea what an osteopath might do to me, and felt a bit nervous actually. I explained how the back had become sore, that I'd had pains in the same area over many years when I had on various occasions unexpectedly twisted it, that it wasn't particularly bad at the moment (the week I hurt it, it was the sorest it's ever been), and that I didn't have pins and needles down my leg. I mentioned that the left leg was shorter than the right - and that perhaps it was to do with the back? He assured me that that was very likely to be the case.
And set about manipulating bits of my back that internally were thinking, What the heck? He twisted me around and pulled me against him while I asking me to pull away; he bent bits up and pushed them back down; he pushed inside things around as though they'd shift out of the way given enough incentive.
It would all have been rather hilarious if I hadn't been expecting any minute that something wold snap in half. But nothing did, of course. I guess he does this all day long, wrapping people about themselves like a piece of soft toffee - and it's the soft stuff inside he's more interested in rather than the bits that like to break - especially as you get older and start wondering which are the best wrinkle creams to apply to that increasingly craggy-looking thing that appears in the mirror each morning.
At the end of all this I wrapped myself up in my clothes again (the trousers had stayed on) and he said I'd possibly need to come back for another couple of sessions - I wouldn't need to think I'd be coming back hundreds of times. In fact, if I felt things had improved enough I needn't come back at all. However, I've made another appointment. It would be good to have both legs standing together on the ground at even length, rather than feeling as though I'm sometimes rolling along like a drunken sailor.
Photo by Phototrope
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