I can just about sit down to write this. I have a hot water bottle snuggled against my lower back and I am sitting on a new tailbone cushion. In twenty minutes, I will swap to an ice pack and rotate. I have been taking paracetamol on loop and getting up for gentle walks but, ouch, it still hurts.
This time last week, I slipped from the top to the bottom of a wooden staircase. I was wearing fluffy socks at the time and I whoosed down, before I knew what was happening. After years of me warning my children and husband to be careful on the stairs while wearing socks, I went and slipped down them. Please let this be a warning to you - always wear slippers, trainers or bare feet for some grip.
All of a sudden I felt myself bumping down the wooden stairs one after another. I was completely disoriented and it was only when I landed in a heap at the foot of the stairs onto slate flooring that I could not stop wailing. Luckily, my husband was nearby but he could not locate where I was at first and what had happened. At first, he thought our dog had been run over, from the pained noise I was making.
When he found me, I felt so lucky and loved. After catching my breath and calming down, he helped me to lie on the sofa and rubbed my back. It was only when I shakily stood up, that the pain suddenly shot to one spot - my coccyx. I hobbled around to see if everything still worked and it just about did but I felt like I was about a hundred years old. My hubby made me a cup of sweet coffee and I ate a few biscuits for medicinal reasons, plus swallowed a paracetamol to take the edge off.
I saw an osteopath a few days later and she gently manipulated and massaged my spine and checked my coccyx. She said I could do with another appointment next week but if it didn’t feel any better, I should get an X-ray to rule out a hairline fracture. I could actually have broken my back - always the drama queen, I know, but still…
So, here I am a week later, awaiting an appointment to see the osteopath again and surviving on hot slash cold packs, epsom bath salts, gentle stolls, pilates exercises interlaced with wall to wall paracetamol (only upto 8 in 24 hours, don’t worry). I can’t believe how quickly you can go from being completely mobile to creaking about like an old lady. I’d better go and stretch my legs again to ease the pain. Hopefully, by the next blog entry, I’ll be walking freely again.
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