back spasm

Were there a God, back spasm would be his bounteous gift to unbelievers like me, his way of making me scream his name.

I perch on the edge of a chair as I write, unable to sit any other way, and probably unable to stand when I finish writing. Back spasm—the agonising grab as the back muscles resist almost any movement, especially straightening the back.

Seeking medical rather than numinous explanation, I ask Dr Google what causes back spasm, but his explanations don’t match the half a dozen causes of my personal experience: tying a shoelace, picking up a bath mat, reaching for the toilet paper, vacuum cleaning, and masturbating.

The sixth was the first and it happened in 1976 during the final minutes of the penultimate game of the season between Newstead and Campbells Creek when an opponent knocked me off balance as I executed a handpass. My hand missed the ball. I was pinged for a throw and pinged my back in the process.

My first and most excruciating experience of back spasm and the only cause I regard as legitimate. How can reaching for toilet paper warrant being rendered helpless for several days? Back spasm is the single most debilitating insult (injury is not the right word) to a person’s physical and mental well-being.      

I ask Dr Google about treatment but he doesn’t have a definitive answer to that either. Years ago I asked a physiotherapist treating my broken shoulder what to do for back spasm. She showed me some exercises.

So I clamber with tremendous trepidation from the unlofty height of my own 178cms, bent at 45 degrees from the waist, to the floor, where I lie groaning: “Oh God, oh God …”

On the floor I lie flat on my back on a purple exercise mat, compose myself, then lift my legs alternately into the air. Not far into the air. Five on each leg. Then I lift and cross each leg over the other. Five on each leg. I curl into a ball.

I roll over gingerly onto my front and repeat the leg-lifting. Then it’s onto my back again and curl into a ball. Finally I stretch full length and ‘walk’ my buttocks away from my torso.

Gradually these exercises restore me to myself. One day soon I will be able to get from the floor to an upright position without the aid of table legs or door frames; I will be able to wipe my arse without sweating fearfully; I will be able to turn over in bed in less then five minutes; and I will be able to throw a leg over the bike.

My training program already in tatters and now this.