SQUARE TWO 🤞🏻

Quote of the day: ‘Scars remind you of difficult places in your life that you've championed.’ - Burt Bielama

Things have all been progressing pretty well as regards recovery from back surgery. I would never say that I was up for running a marathon pre-op, however I think I am reasonably youngish and fit enough to have given my body a fair chance at a good recovery from what has been a significant event.

There have been a few minor hurdles along the way: a couple of tough bouts of sudden and immersive depression. Fortunately they went pretty much as soon as they came.

Withdrawal from the pregabalin was probably the toughest physically.

Yes, the physical recovery from spinal surgery, from the actual invasive procedure itself, has been intense, painful at times, debilitating but generally, with a hindsight hat on, it has been tolerable.

Helped, I am 100% sure by the immense support and assistance from Simon and by the professionalism of the hospital team in the first instance too.

Six weeks post-op tomorrow, my beautifully straight scar itself is healing really well.

So it’s a bit of a shock when suddenly, you’re ticking along, making gentle strides forward and suddenly something happens.

Not sure yet what it is but there are two things out of the ordinary that I have done today that could have contributed to the sudden onset of pain.

First was a very genuinely gentle painting session of a wooden surround that Simon has made for the guest bathroom.

Second, I picked up a log to put in the wood burner. Upon picking it up, it did feel heavier than it looked but I picked it up anyway and pushed it in.

All good until a couple of minutes later when there was a intense burning sensation in the wound area.

What I have now is a sharp pain in the spine, higher than where the surgery was. I’m not sure if it feels like a pulled muscle, a muscle spasm or something skeletal.

It’s frightened me as I am still so unsure as to how little I should be doing. I don’t think it’s the vertebral scaffolding itself but it truly terrifies me that I could have compromised something higher up by doing too much.

Hoping it’s a minor blip that will dissipate with continued lying down and taking things very easy indeed.

Yet again.

Yawn.

Friday morning cannot come soon enough - there’s an X-ray booked then to take with me to see the surgeon a week tomorrow. Just clinging I’m still at square two, not back to square one, and that it all still looks identical inside to how it did when I left the hospital.