When’s the last time you heard someone say that, eh?

Anyhow. Being me has comes with a certain amount of back pain ever since my second growth spurt. when I was fifteen or thereabouts.

Nothing terrible or crippling. Just occasional aches in my lower back that make me really, really appreciate chairs with good back support.

But lately, the pain has gotten worse, to the point of occasionally being “acute” (defined by me as “bad enough to make me cry out in pain”) and I am starting to worry.

The old man noises I have been making as I move around have taken on a sharply plaintive tone, and there have been a number of worrisome incidents.

Like this one time I was getting out of bed (always the biggest challenge for my back) when my back muscles spasmed quite painfully and pulled my spine ramrod straight, causing me to fall back onto my bed in a dazed state.

That was pretty bad.

And in general, the creaking of my spine has been more painful and the muscles there have become far more likely to be an impediment to my moving around than the long term issues with the muscles in my legs and arms.

It took a while for this to penetrate the paranoid parapets of my consciousness because it sort of blended in with the pain from my limbs.

It took a while for it to get acute enough to stand out and make itself known.

But as recently as last Monday night, when I was doing the MRI thing, I noticed that it was my back aching that limited how much time I could spend walking far more than my leg and arm muscles.

I’ve been trying to sort of bully the muscles in my lower back into relaxing via pushing my spine straight with my fist, and of course via rubbing, and both of those things feel good and seem to help but the root problem remains.

Meaning it’s probably a digestive issue at heart. (Or at spleen. ) Somewhere in that troubled territory known as my lower intestine(s) is some kind of soft blockage and my peristaltic attempts to pass it down the line are making the entire area tense, including the lower back muscles that are, after all, right behind it.

Sounds weird, but trust me, I have been through this before.

Not a lot I can do about it except to hydrate aggressively in order to try to flush the blockage downstream, and to keep it moist and thus less likely to get stuck and clog things up as well as making it more likely to break into easier to pass chunks.

Oh well. To coin a phrase, this too shall pass.

But just in case, I will bring it up with Doctor Chao when I see him on Friday morning for my weekly B12 shot.

That’s going to be a busy day. Wound Care and Doctor Chao in the morning and then my second of two MRIs late at night.

I will be a lot less nervous about the second MRI because now it’s a known thing. I am always a lot more calm when I am no longer dealing with an unfamiliar place and all the overstimulation that comes from that.

I really am a fragile, timid creature, aren’t i?

But I am working on that. By hook or by crook, somehow, I will pull myself up out of this deep dark well and find a way to be real and feel good in the real world.

I don’t have to be an urban hermit any more.

More after the break.

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So damned tired

It feels like the simplest of things takes so much effort lately.

I don’t know if I am at the bottom of a cycle or what. But it sure feels that way. Just getting to the kitchen to get food and back feels like a marathon. I am breathing hard and sweating and a little bit dizzy when I get back.

And I really, really don’t want to lose the ability to go get my own food. It’s like my last line of defense against the erosion of my personal capacities.

Well, that and being able to go to the bathroom on my own. But that does not bear thinking on at all.

It would be ironic if, having regained the ability to order my own groceries online and thus saved Julian from having to go grocery shopping for me for him to then have to start making my meals and bringing them to me.

Actually, at that point, I would just request help from the province. I know they office meal assistance via some kind of meals on wheels deals deal sometimes.

Back home, when I was a kid, Meals on Wheels was simple : they came straight from the hospital kitchen, just like you were an inpatient there.

I do sometimes wonder if I would be better off in an assisted living facility. It would unburden poor Julian and take a lot of guilt and worry off my conscience, plus they could monitor my vitals and head off issues before they become problems.

And to be honest, relying on me to self-report is a terrible system. Between a lot of problems not showing up unless I am up and moving (which would happen even less in a managed care home) and my just having no idea how I am supposed to be feeling, my ability to know when I am sick is more or less entirely based on whether or not I can still use my computer to play video games.

Sad, ain’t it? I am a piteous creature, n’est-ce pas?

Sometimes I wish I could just give up and start over. Just magically leave this life and this body behind and start over in some small town up the coast where nobody knows me or my history and I can start over with a clean slate and decide who I am from there.

Like V did in V for Vendetta.

But with less murder.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.