The lumbago scare

Well that was scary two weeks ago.  

Jan was driving Kabouter and some friends to a field near the French border for a scouting camp and I had packed up a suitcase and other stuff.  We wanted to be ready for Jans return to immediately pack the car again and drive to the east of Belgium for a long extended weekend there (where we'd also be dropping off Beertje at a scouting camp field).  
The hallway was filled with suitcase, scouting backpacks etc ... I had watered the plants, dropped off a key at the neighbours for her to take care of our tomatoes in the heat. Then I was just picking up some toy cars and dropped them in one of the toy boxes to clean up. I didn't truly bend, I slightly turned but there my back just snapped.  

OUCH

AUWW fxck, help. 

I couldn't get up, couldn't move, slid on my knees while holding the cupboard tightly.  
Nope, I couldn't get up. 

I screamed for Beertje who was surfing the internet with headphones in the basement.  He came but felt helpless as did I . I phoned Jan to cry I coudn't move but obviously Jan couldn't be of any help either. So I phoned the doctors on weekend guard. But that phone just kept ringing....5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. I cramped and panicked.
Beertje had pulled up a chair for me already and I had pulled myself in it but could hardly sit.  In panic I needed a toilet, obviously so tried to hop the chair slowly a bit closed to the hallway but had to stop quickly. 

While I kept being on hold and Jan tried to phone back but I wasn't going to answer and lose my line,  I finally sent Beertje to the neighbourhood pharmacy for help.  I knew the pharmacist couldn't help me, but he was familiar in the medical world, and had maybe different ideas than my pain induced brain. 
Sure enough he came in quickly, leaving his pharmacy and the waiting customers behind for a moment.  He also tried to phone the medical assistance in vain and disappeared again.  
Beertje tried to charge his old phone to phone Jan back. 

While I was on hold for over 30 minutes, the phone sometimes seemed to play the welcome message and then click again , then returning to the waiting music.  All of a sudden I heard the voice of our neighbour pharmacist coming in again with a lady voice.  I couldn't turn to look but he introduced her as a neurological surgeon living around the corner and waiting in the pharmacy. She was willing to help me if I agreed, if not we'd better phone the ambulance to pick me up for ER. 

I knew that ER seemed overkill. I had seen my father in such blockades during my childhood: a wrong movement when putting on his socks and on his knees blocked at the bedside until our practitioner arrived at home and injected him.  Also in Spain this happened and some other Belgian doctor on vacation that we had become friends with had come to inject my father . With a lot of rest then all gradually improved and became normal again. I don't think we ever gave it a lot of attention as children, which now clearly felt guilty about.  In Spain we were simply happy to need to extend our rent as my father couldn't drive the 2000 km home yet in the first week. Yippee more vacation and we disregarded his pain a bit. I also assume my mother would have kept us away from that first pain and panic a bit.  
But here I was now and the pharmacist and doctor confirmed that in the ER I would probably just get an injection.  And how would they get me on a little bed to ship me away in the first place. So I agreed to the friendly female voice that she could help me.  

She went back and forth a bit to the pharmacy to arrange prescriptions and medication, checking with Beertje the paracetemol he had already carried to me etc.   This friendly stranger first carried me at my request to the toilet and ensured I ended up sitting there , to help me out of it again and lay me down in the sofa. Ha, nice way to meet your neighbours.   Then she arrived with the injection material and a few boxes of painkillers.  She didn't want anything for the help and noted down on the children's drawing paper sheets what she had administered me and her medical license number etc in case I needed follow up. But she promised quick relieve after which she left and just crossed Jan arriving home. 

And indeed, the muscle relaxant that gets injected to solve the diagnosis of acute lumbago helps rather quickly and one hour later I slowly shuffled in the house myself again.   I was afraid of each movement that sent pain shots through my body, I was mostly exhausted and afraid of the scare. The idea that I might be vulnerable to this now (since in Febr I had weeks of back pain too and it' s not the first time) and such a lumbago could arrive one day when I'm on my own without phone at hand is a very very scary image now. 
But indeed I could slowly move again and had to move to relax and excercise the blocked muscles. No more "lay down for 2 weeks immobile" as was the cure for my dad in the 80ies.  Scared that I'd get another shot of pain and fall down on my knees, I shuffled with Beertje in the park for 500 meters, which took us half an hour. But I moved. I moved between all the luggage waiting in vain in the hallway since I wasn't going to get myself in any car yet.


I soaked for hours in our hot tub and actually felt comfortable in the hot water so I started bing watching series while sitting in the hot water. 

To my surprise sleeping went well. I was exhausted, mostly by the panic I assume.  

And then the next day after lots of soaking again, and a a full portion of painkillers, I risked getting in the car to drive to the east of Belgium so we could get there and Beertje could go to his camp as planned.  Getting in the car along seemed less scary than staying behind alone at home.  But I did feel improvement little by little.  After a few days I complained more about the side effects of the high dosis of Ibuprofen, so I slowed down my high dosis of painkillers around the clock. It increaed the pain in my back again but it was bearable.

And now 2 weeks later, I'm painkiller free and actually just about pain free as well.  Pheww.  I will pick up a new series of physiotherapy again though and the power training I had paused a bit in the heat waves will have to return in my daily schedule whether it is hot or not.  

Pfff all good, it wasn't all that bad in the end but thank goodness for a doctor walking by and coming in to help.  It was a scary moment to lose your mobility so suddenly with such pain.