Sciatica - not a futuristic thriller

Day two of sciatica inspired confinement.

I had a bad back all last week, and it finally got better on Tuesday after many exercises and ibuprofen... then I got a giant horrible shooting pain down my leg and couldn't walk. I was reduced to having my daughter wheel me round ASDA in a wheelchair, which actually was kinda cool. Weird how everyone treats you when you're in a chair. It's one thing to be in a chair for 5 minutes play, but try one for a couple of hours and see how you like the world from down there. And people step aside, not in a courteous "sorry mate" kind of way but almost as if they were kinda going that way and just chose now to do so, so they don't have to acknowledge you. Why do we do that?

So it turns out I have sciatica. Basically it's a trapped nerve bundle in your hip/spine which travels down your leg like an electric bullet train at the slightest provocation. It's like a cramp, you can avoid it by not doing those things which make it happen. Unfortunately the things which make it happen change from time to time, and those include things like walking, standing, sitting, lying down, getting up, bending over. It's like back pain roulette, where she stops nobody knows.

So day two of total boredom. It's not like having a migraine or a cold where you can shamble to the toilet when you feel like it and go make a sandwich and put on a DVD. You have to do a round of the whole house, inch by painful inch, a couple of times a day, taking care of all the things you might want to do, food, entertainment, taking a pee, and then get back to bed or a chair taking at least 30 minutes to get comfortable again when you finally crawl back. And every once in a while you'll do something wrong and get the pain, which hits like a gunshot and drops you to the floor where you try really hard to find a leg position which will relax it and stop it hurting. And sometimes fail.

I'm hoping the mega anti-inflammatory tabs the doc gave me kick in soonish. I could really use the mobility. I start moving house tomorrow. Oh it'll get done, but I will owe the kids and Mia something for being my hands and feet.

Oh and in case I forgot to mention it to everyone, the web comic is going great guns over at www.idcomix.com. Been wanting to do some comics for a long time, and this is turning out really swell.

Px