I was in hospital.
Not just visiting but actually in hospital. Being the fat and clumsy git that I am, I somehow managed to sprain a muscle in my lower back and spent just over 24 hours enjoying hospital food. The good news is that the x-ray shows that there wasn't any damage to the bones. This is good because it means that I should be back to normal as soon as the muscle heals up. The bad news is that it may take a while for the muscle to heal. Unlike other muscles, it's impossible to completely let the lower back muscle relax (its not like I can stay in bed for the next several weeks) which will likely mean that it will take some time for the muscle to fully heal.
I'm pretty comfortable with this diagnosis from the doctor as I don't feel any pain in my lower back if I can lie down and let the muscles relax. For example, when I was lying down, I didn't feel any pain even when the doctor started pressing the area during his examination. It was only when I needed to move or even when I was sitting up that I felt the pressure and consequent pain.
I caused quite a scene in the office too. The sprain was so bad that I couldn't even stand up. As soon as I tried to stand, the pain would reaaaly flare up. I even used my arms to leverage myself up and, although that worked at first in that I was able to stand up, it ultimately wasn't helpful as my lower back literally couldn't support my own weight. As soon as I transferred some weight from my arms to my legs, the pain would flare up again. In the end, our secretary had to call an ambulance to take me to hospital.
As you can expect, I spent a portion of this morning (when I returned to the office after a couple of days sick leave) telling a stream of visitors to my office that I was okay.
:)
The sprain itself was surprisingly bad and I was in a lot of pain. Not only could I not stand up, but I couldn't even turn over when I was lying down. When the doctor gave me an injection of painkiller, they had to assist me in turning over so they could jab the needle up my
Anyway, the doctor realised the painkiller wasn't very effective when after 45 minutes, the pain was such that I still couldn't stand up. At that point, I got rolled up to the wards and received my (hopefully) once in a lifetime chance to enjoy hospital food.
Do you know what the saddest thing in all this is? To my eternal shame, I sprained my lower back muscle by .....
(wait for it!!) .....
... standing up.
:(
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2 comments:
I thought it was something like carrying the kids until you mentioned that it happened in the office.
How the bejeezus did you manage to sprain it just by standing up?
Old age is catching up with you...
Not surprisingly, the doctor couldn't tell me definitively how I sprained my lower back. However, one of the questions I was very quickly asked was whether there were any new babies at home.
One of the theories proposed was that there was an accumulation of stress on the lower back from numerous factors and the fact that I may have stood up too quickly (ie standing up while twisting my body to go around the chair and table at the same time) may have resulted in the muscle twisting.
Ultimately just a guess though.
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