IT'S embarrassing, at the age of 40, to feel like I'm 60. But I have in the past few weeks become an old man prematurely. My back is out. To clarify, in medical terms, according to my chiropractor, the disc in my lower lumbar called L2 is out of position and I have a nerve trapped. I have to apply ice packs every hour, I have to call him if I lose control of my bladder, as this is a common symptom.
I have been in this situation before. My previous difficulties have had a variety of causes, mostly due to exuberant excess and forgetting to bend my knees before lifting; of picking up a fine-looking woman in something I thought a romantic gesture t
hen hearing a click and spasming on the ground till she got me a taxi; of working in the film industry and in a moment of enthusiasm helping the techies lift some heavy equipment on to their truck; of picking up my second newborn, hearing the click again and finding the nearest possible receptacle to place her safely before screaming.
This past week, lying on my back with ice packs, has given me much pause. I've been thinking about mortality, ageing and the sorry state of the NHS.
My mother had a pelvic injury and I have heard her stories of the many, many months on a waiting list for osteo. Of how they feed you anti-inflammatories in the meantime, which hurt your stomach, and so they then feed you indigestion medication, and change your painkiller to morphine derivatives. How both of these hamper digestion and cause constipation which, somewhat ironically, aggravates your back pain.
I trust in the ideal of the NHS but the reality of its waiting lists for non-life-threatening conditions terrifies me. The last time I was in there for back pain I was sat down and had to do a full Q&A interview with banal questions about what day it was, and if I knew who and where I was, while I tried to explain that my condition was pre-existent and well documented on their files. I gave up and went home to ice packs.
And the private alternative is not much better. Although they don't screen you for being a potential junkie, who can trust the £100 mandatory X-ray and the £35 sessions in which a stranger leans on you till your bones click and asks you if you want to buy another ice pack and when can he schedule the next session?
I ask myself: in whose financial interest is it for me to keep on suffering?
When push comes to shove, and both pushing and shoving are deeply painful, I face the fact that my spine is my own problem. Spines existed long before the NHS. And although I distrust the private healthcare option, in the current political climate private care is the only solution to a daily pain that tells me it won't tolerate just sitting here guzzling drugs till the waiting lists diminish.
I have considered making up intricate lies to the NHS about how I've just walked away from a car crash so I can get seen with emergency speed, but cannot face the same Q&A as to my potential drink and drug habit. I'm just a guy with a bad back and I can't wait for the NHS to sort itself out before getting treatment.
Call me a Tory if you like, but you don't have to wake every day to this pain.
The full article contains 613 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
