amazing grace

Back spasm usually lasts three or four days. This episode begins on a Friday and ends the next Friday. But, not quite. On the eighth day I move more freely, but still carefully. I sit with only minor discomfort. I can climb out of a chair, get in and out of a car. The depression lifts.

Early Saturday morning I finally ride again, out to Hartland’s Eucy Farm in the Whipstick—52.17kms at 29.2kph. Spinning the pedals is a joy and my average speed is impressive after such a spell off the bike, even though the terrain is dead flat and I hardly touch the shifters. I feel fine, fine and dandy.

My daughter’s gone up north with her partner and my grand-daughter for four weeks. I’m dog-sitting her heeler. Dog-walking has been a trial; bending to get them on and off leads, doing my civic duty with biodegradable bags, and restraining them when we unexpectedly encounter another hounds.

I walk them after my ride, finishing at the wooden grandstand at the velodrome. Always hungry, the heeler hunts for food scraps. The JRT rolls his ball down the steps and catches it at the bottom. Again and again and again. I do some gentle stretches, the first in over a week. Carefully I lift each leg onto a low bench-seat and lean forward ever so gently to release the hamstrings.

The instant I bring the second leg back to earth I feel it. Something not right. The lower back deteriorates rapidly in the afternoon: the muscles aren’t ‘grabby’; they’re not tender to touch; they’re dully, acutely, alarmingly achy. A descending depression guillotines the morning’s zest. Frustration turns to sullen anger.

Sunday morning I’m physically distressed, the slightest movement an ordeal. I’m distressed about my training, distressed that this is no back spasm, but something worse, something to do with discs or nerves, to do with loosening my wallet to expensive medical specialists.

My good woman is distressed too. She sees my agony on Skype: the webcam doesn't lie. I’m literally on my knees, can’t sit, can’t stand. She wants to drive to Bendigo and bear me to Melbourne, into her care. But I’m a bloke, a fiercely independent one. All that living on my own. I’ll get by. I’ll crawl to the toilet if need be. I don’t do ‘care’, don’t know how to give in to it, to accept it with grace.

Later in the day she gives me a sternly gentle lecture about people and partnerships. Sense prevails. My GP is in Emerald, much closer to Melbourne than Bendigo, and I need my GP’s referral to that expensive specialist, a physiotherapist, an osteopath, maybe a radiologist.

Grace prevails too. My good woman wants to tie my shoelaces so I can shamble along the footpath, dry between my toes after a shower, laugh with me as I grimace, and help lift my leg over the top bar so I can keep riding. She understands: she gets it.