The Spinal Frontier

So the nasty hell beast that is work grew tired of sucking my soul out of my anus, and decided to start wailing on my spinal chord instead.

I’ve probably lost you with that inappropriate and nonsensical metaphor so I’ll cut the foreplay and lay the cards on the table.

I fucked my back up at work.

Now I don’t want you kids shedding tears for your Uncle Beef, because said injury occurred a few months ago now – and I’ve since had the problem rectified. But Christ it was a painful few weeks for a while there.

I was lifting about half a dozen heavy computers back in mid September, and had to package them up. I’ve had manual labour jobs in the past, so I know the proper "lift with your knees and not your back" and all that shit. But getting said computers into their corresponding boxes had me twisting in awkward angles. I stood up straight after boxing the last computer, only to notice a new addition to my body – namely a sharp pain in my lower back that felt like a donkey kick every time I took a deep breath in.

Luckily for me there is a Chiropractor’s office just up the road from my house, and I made an appointment a few days after.

The specialist turned out to be a smart middle aged man, who was passionate about the care and maintenance of a healthy spine. For reasons that are unclear to me now, I decided to go to my first appointment with a stinking hangover. Which of course made for an entertaining half hour session:

"It feels nauseous when I push against your back here?"

Indeed. Must be a back problem. That or the 25 gin and tonics I had last night. Ugh.

Quite a torturous experience, having your spine cracked back into place with a bad hangover. I liken it to having sex with a Prostitute made completely out of Lego, for reasons I do not wish to go into at this current time.

I ended up seeing the Chiro for a further six appointments over the following two months. He taught me back stretching and strengthening exercises, and the importance of keeping a good posture during your day to day dealings. If I didn’t keep a decent posture, my back could have a relapse and the pain would come back.

The problem here of course, is that my life pretty much consists of a cycle of slumps. Slumping at a train station, slumping in front of my work computer, and then back to slumping at the train station, followed by slumping on the couch. Sometimes when I’m feeling creative I like to spice up my routine, by slumping at my local bar.

If you fed a Koala Hash cakes for a week, he wouldn’t slouch as much as I do.

Gosh, what’s a boy to do?