The day I did my back in...

Jeff from View from a Cloud has been whineing like a bloke over his injured back so I reckon its my turn to complain about "the day I did my back in".

Every male has a story about "the day I did my back in" because the truth is that the females on this planet flog us to death for much of our life until we eventually "do our backs in" and then die much younger than they do.

The day I did my back in wasn't really a day as such, it was an accumulation of days - let this be a warning to those new dads out there - an accumulation of carrying our newborn infants around instead of using one of those nancyboy slings, backpacks, or just making the little buggers walk.

The lower back pains built and built until one day I suddenly couldn't bend down any longer, and later on that day I couldn't stand up any longer either, neither could I lie down, the pain was like no pain that any man should bear, far worse than childbirth just in case any woman feels like entering that into the debate, far worse, women just don't get back pain like men do.

Off to the doctor for one of only a handful of visits in my life, "who are you" she asked, "a patient" I replied, "lie on the couch" she instructed, "thats why I'm here" I said, "I cant lie down and anyway your couch is too high, I can't lift my leg up that high either, not now, not with my back I can't" I further moaned to her, "who are you anyway" she enquired.

She confirmed that I'd done my back in, which I knew anyway, she told me to go home and lie on the floor and eat painkillers, "here" she said, handing me enough painkillers to enable me to amputate all my limbs without even noticing (apart from the arm doing the ampuating of course).

I did as I was told, I lay on the floor in front of the gas fire and in front of the TV, hey there was no need to be uncomfortable was there, and I ate painkillers for several days - at night my children, who lets not forget had caused my back problem, came and kissed me good night while I growled and shook my fist at them and my wife came and threw a quilt over me and I lay there on the living room floor in the dark, munching painkillers, our huge German Shepherd dog trying to drag the quilt off me and claiming the pillow too.

I lay there for a couple of weeks and the back got no better.

The doctor came to see me and she sat there on the settee with my wife drinking my coffee and eating my chocolate biscuits and they both laughed at me, then she told me I'd crushed a disc and it was pressing against my spinal cord, hence the pain and lack of feeling in my left leg - she gave me an appointment card to see a physiotherapist at our local hospital.

I screamed in pain all the way there as I drove myself to the hospital for my appointment and after she had finished laughing at me the physio, Mrs Goering, strapped me to a hospital bed, a large leather strap across my chest and another across my feet, then laughing like a crazy Dr Frankenstein she told me of the medievil torture machine to which she had just tethered me - she pressed a button and the bed started to part, the top half seperating from the bottom half.

She closed the curtains and left telling me not to scream too loud as she was going for a coffee down the hallway, it was then that I realised as the bed seperated in the middle that my legs were tied to the bottom half and the rest of me tied to the top, something had to give and it wasn't going to be the machinery, it was going to be my poorly back.

She left me on that Nazi instrument of hell for half an hour and when she came back I was eight feet tall, but I still wouldn't tell her my bank PIN number and she had to reluctantly let me go, making another appointment for next week which I never kept.

My doctor, when contacted, suggested that a chiropractor might be of use, warning that they were all charlatans and that the NHS wouldn't employ not one of them and I'd have to pay to see one, "but still" she said, "its worth a try isn't it", the subtext being "because theres fookall else I can do for you".

I went to see the chiropractor, another woman, Mrs Menegele, who made me take all my clothes off and then stand at her front window where all the passers by could see me, and laugh.

"Stand up straight" she instructed, "I am standing up straight" I informed her, "No you're not" she said, "your backs all twisted", "Thats why I'm here" I informed her, patiently.

She told me to climb on the couch, I told her I couldn't, she shouted at me, so I climbed on the couch, then she told me that she was going to "crunch" my spine which I thought was a strange turn of phrase seeing as I'd already done a pretty good job of crunching my spine and it was surely her job to uncrunch it.

She massaged the base of my spine for a short while and then without warning jumped on it, I mean literally jumped on my spine, I reckon she'd climbed on the couch without me seeing, it felt like she'd used a sledgehammer to hit my spine with, which is actually another option that she might have used, whatever it was I felt my spine crunch, she wasn't joking when she said she was going to crunch my spine, she fooking crunched it good.

I crawled out of her consulting room half dressed and with an appointment card for next week which I didn't keep and she charged me an extortionate amount of money for making my back worse than it was before.

To be continued....maybe